Rampant tree-felling shrinks Nepal's forest cover
Date: 28-Mar-01
Country: NEPAL
The State of the Environment Nepal report, released late on Monday, said that the Himalayan kingdom's forest cover declined to 29 percent of Nepal's total area in 1994 from 38 percent in 1979.
It said the South Asian nation's shrub area, on the other hand, increased to 10.6 percent of total area from 4.7 percent in the same period.
"This (fall in forest cover) has been mainly due to uncontrolled cutting of trees for fuel and forest clearance for agricultural land," said the report by the Nepali government and the United Nations Environment Programme.
It said fuelwood consumption in the poverty-stricken nation was the main cause for the forest depletion.
Forests have also been under pressure due to the increasing demands of the livestock population for grazing and fodder, it said.
U.N. officials said more recent statistics were not available.
