"The majority land cover of the eastern ecoregions in 2000 was forest (52.4 percent of the region); however, the amount of forest cover has declined since 1973. Since 1973, agriculture (21.6 percent of the region) has also declined, while developed land, primarily related to urban growth, has increased (10.6 percent of the region). Wetlands (7.5 percent) and water (4.0 percent) have stayed relatively consistent in area over the 1973 to 2000 period."
The Eastern Region is the only section completed to date in the Land Trends Survey. Notice the above report mentions the amount of FOREST has declined, not FORESTLAND. A forest is not forestland. The below is from USDA Forest Service.
For example, consider the difference between forest <http://ncrs.fs.fed.us/4153/deltawest/datainfo.asp#forest>, which is a type of land use, and forestland <http://ncrs.fs.fed.us/4153/deltawest/datainfo.asp#forestland>, which is the corresponding land cover type <http://ncrs.fs.fed.us/4153/deltawest/datainfo.asp#landcover>. Forest is defined as a tract of land of at least 1 acre, at least 120 feet wide, and at least 16.7% stocked with forest trees of any size. In the process of measuring forests field survey crews record the amount (i.e., area, volume, and size-class) and condition of trees by species and Forest Type Group. Forestland is the land cover type that describes a tract of land upon which trees are the dominant feature; as a general rule, a tract of land must have a canopy closure of at least 25 percent in order to be classified as forestland, however, under certain conditions a tract of land that is treeless can also be classified as forestland. Forestland is measured remotely using aerial photography and satellite imagery.
A tree farm is forestland but not a forest. A defunct farm that will one day be tract housing is also forestland. Keep in mind that 20% of suburb, exurb, development took place on what was once farmland. The reduction in farmland is not causing an increase in forests only forestland in the US. This is playing with words to hide uncomfortable facts.
The below is from the USDA Forest Service Changing Midwest Assessment. (It covers the 7 Midwestern states)
On a percentage basis, the greatest change was from agriculture and forestland to urban. The urban land cover type increased 24.3 percent, equivalent to approximately 1.5 million acres. The area of forestland increased 7 percent, from 71.8 million acres in 1980 to 76.8 million acres in 2000. According to NRI data, developed land increased by 1.3 million acres annually from 1982 to 1987, 1.5 million acres from 1987 to 1992, and 3.2 million acres from 1992 to 1997. The 1992 to 1997 rate of development doubled the rate from previous periods.
Those are unsustainable rates of growth on anyones scale.
The below is from the FOA's Pan-Tropical Survey of Forest Cover Changes 1980-2000.
"The 2000 pan-tropical remote sensing survey complemented the assessment based on country information and focused on change processes in tropical forests during the 1980s and 1990. Important products generated through the survey include change matrices for the tropics as a whole (developing country areas) and for Africa, Asia and Latin America separately. The matrices show the various forest and land cover classes and how they have changed over the past two decades. The study is the first to provide a consistent methodology for assessing forest cover change between two assessment periods (1980 to 1990 and 1990 to 2000). Correlations between the remote sensing survey results and the country statistical data for the tropics summed at regional levels were good, although the remote sensing survey indicated a lower level of deforestation than the aggregate national findings for Africa.
Results of the study at the pan-tropical level indicate that the world's tropical forests within the surveyed area were lost at the rate of about 8.6 million hectares annually in the 1990s, compared to a loss of around 9.2 million hectares during the previous decade. This change fell within the margin of error for the tropics as a whole. In contrast, smaller increases in deforestation (not statistically significant) were detected in both tropical rain forests and dry forests. Across the tropics, most of the deforestation was due to the direct conversion of forests to permanent agriculture or pastures and, to a lesser degree, to the gradual intensification of shifting agriculture.
For the 1990-2000 reporting period, at pan-tropical levels, the survey revealed that closed canopy forest was the class most subject to loss. The "other land cover" class, which includes sparsely vegetated areas such as agriculture and urban areas, showed the greatest increase in area across the tropics. Most forests were converted to other land cover at the pan-tropical level. The implication of this finding is that most tropical closed canopy forests were lost as a result of their conversion to agriculture (an insignificant portion went to urban areas). At the regional level the results varied somewhat.
In Africa, during the 1990s, the amount of closed canopy forest converted into other land cover was relatively low in comparison with other regions. Large portions of both closed and open canopy forests were converted into fragmented forest and short-fallow classes in the region. Significant areas of fragmented forest were also converted into other land cover. The open canopy forest in Africa sustained greater losses than in the other regions.
Forest change in Latin America was characterized by a marked large transition from closed canopy forests into other land cover (which was about twice as great as in the other regions). While the findings were similar in Asia, that region also had large areas of closed canopy forest that were transformed into both long and short fallow. Substantial areas of shrubs were also converted into other land cover in Latin America, but not in Asia or Africa. Changes from other land cover and closed forests to plantations (human-made woody vegetation) were also notably observed in Asia."
Promises from African Nations to set aside some percentage of land for non-development are all fine and good but projections are based on what has happened, not what was promised would happen.
Decomposing Growth in Residential Land in the United States offers this bit.
"Between 1976 and 1992 the amount of residential land in the United States grew 47.5% while population only grew 17.8%. At first glance, this suggest an important role for per-household increases. However, the calculations in this paper show that only 24.3% of the growth in residential land area can be attributed to State-level changes in land per household. 37.5\% is due to overall population growth, 5.9% to the shift of population towards States with larger houses, 22.7% to an increase in the number of households over this period, and the remaining 9.5% to interactions between these changes. There are large differences across states and metropolitan areas in the relative importance of these components.
While land is often redeveloped, it is almost never undeveloped. At the national level, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Resource Inventory, less than 0.8% of developed land was converted from urban or agricultural to nonurban uses over the 15year period 1982 1997.(US Department of Agriculture, 2000)"
In other words farms are not being turned over to wild spaces. It isn't happening no matter what anyone says. The data is all there for anyone willing to look for it and at it. You consider developed land as different from agricultural land. They are the same. Developed land is not urban or suburban but simply developed. A farm is not a natural occurrence, it is a development for a specific purpose. When you say the UK is 10% "built up and 75% farmland you are saying it is 85% developed and only 15% undeveloped. Part of the reason UK farmland is decreasing is that food importation is up and when farming land is allocated for development under Local Structure Plans the landowners benefit not only from uplifted values of often over 1000% but can also claim 100% roll over relief on this unearned capital gain given to them free by the planning system. This easily beats what you can make with the Farm Woodlands Premium Scheme and the Woodland Grant scheme. England has one of the lowest percentages of forest cover in the European Union (EU), less than 25% of the EU average. According to defra;
"There have been significant losses in the extent of some semi-natural habitats due to agricultural practices and urban and industrial development. Despite evidence that the rate of habitat loss has slowed, there is evidence of continuing decline in habitat quality and in biodiversity due to a range of factors linked to agricultural intensification. Rural land has been lost to urban development at a rate of about 5-6,000 ha. per year. There have been significant losses in the /extent of some semi-natural habitats/ as a result of agricultural improvements and urban and industrial development. For example, it is estimated that lowland unimproved grassland declined by 97% in the fifty years up to 1984. Some 45% of the area of ancient woodland was cleared for other land uses or replaced by plantations, usually of non-native species. Despite the fact that rates of habitat loss have slowed, there is evidence of /continuing decline in habitat quality and in biodiversity/. The diversity of plant species in crops, meadows, hedges and streamsides in the agricultural lowlands fell significantly between 1978 and 1990. The reasons for poor habitat condition or declining biodiversity are complex and vary from site-to-site and species-to-species. But the effects of agricultural intensification - land drainage, flood protection, conversion from hay to silage production, shift to autumn sown cereals, fertiliser and pesticide use, overgrazing, water abstraction and atmospheric pollution - are well documented .
The fact that more food can be grown on less land TODAY, a fact you love to crow about, is never mentioned in the same breath as the bad news concerning its degrading effect on the environment and its obvious unsustainability into the very far future.
John Thornton