A large and growing number of countries are reversing the longstanding trend toward destruction of their forests, a surprising new analysis has found.
The scientists say their study suggests that environmental damage can be reversed with a combination of policy and luck. Twenty years ago most scientists believed that deforestation was an inexorable result of industrialization and that the earth would soon be virtually denuded of trees.
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A vast majority of the richer and more developed countries had more forest area and denser forests in 2005 than in 1990. In the United States and Western Europe the transition began decades ago, but it has increased rapidly in the last 15 years, the researchers found.
I'm calling this evidence that forests are normal goods (i.e., demand increases with income) and economic growth leads to reforestation. If you don't like that conclusion you can call me funny names in the comments section, and, please, use sarcasm as a blade to suggest that I'm neoclassically naive and only with training in forestry and the natural sciences would I know the magnitude of my folly.
