Forest area as a percentage of total land area

This indicator is proposed as an indicator for Sustainable Development Target 15.1 By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements


Linkages

6.6


Data & Organisations

  • FAO carries out global forest resources assessments at 5 year intervals, the results of the FRA 2015 will be released in September 2015 and next assessment will most likely be in 2020
  • FAO: Retain as most relevant indicator. The indicator is already included among the indicators for the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) (indicator 7.1 “Proportion of land covered by forest”). In order to provide a precise definition of the indicator, it is crucial to provide a definition of “Forest” and “Total Land Area”. According to the FAO definitions, Forest is defined as “land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ. It does ot include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use