Need the current figure or the percentages of acceleration over the
last three decades.

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Request for Question Clarification by omnivorous-ga on 01 May 2004 11:27 PDT

Graham --

You'll want to be more specific in your definition of "deforestation,"
as some even argue that vast portions of the country are routinely
"reforested."

Because of arguments over definitions, some choose to argue that "old
growth forests" are the best example of deforestation.    Here's a
pretty good page treating various definitions:
Council on Biological Diversity
http://www.biodiv.org/programmes/areas/forest/definitions.asp

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

Omivorous made some good points. The forests were first cut in much of
the USA more than a century ago to make timber and later lumber, lay
railroad track grow food and cattle. Now we import about half of our
food, meat and other products and the import percentage is still
increasing. Many of the farms and ranches and railway right aways are
growing up in scrub trees = nature is reforesting. Other huge tracts
have been replanted and cut repeatedly for lumber and paper making. It
does not seem fair to me to count each tree cut, without subtracting
at least some of the trees that have been planted in the last 30
years.
 My guess is the deforestation of the USA since 1974 has been about
-2% which is to say reforestation has occured. More acres are
presently forested. The trees are removing more carbon dioxide and
providing more shelter for endangered animals and plants as well as
plants and animals that are not endangered. The total number of trees
has increased, perhaps even the total board feet growing. In my
neighborhood, there are at least 40  trees over 40 feet tall per
average acre.
 It will be difficult to show in an honest way that deforestation is
occuring in the USA as a whole. Centuries of wild fire, continue to
dwarf small local deforestation.  Neil

With a few local exceptions acelleration has not occured the past 30
years. The trends have been flat = constant = not accelerating =
except perhaps we are replacing hardwoods with pine trees to a slight
extent which is possibly accellerating and the number of trees over
100 feet tall may decreasing slightly. Generally these very tall trees
are less effective in removing carbon dioxide per acre than medium
size trees, nor do the very tall trees serve any other function that I
know of better than medium trees, other than to stand in awe, and as
habitats for spotted owls.   Neil