It would help if this country developed a forestry policy that provides incentives to grow trees.

At present there are tax incentives to cut trees down, timber sales being tax free. But the cost of planting, maintaining and managing a forest is not allowable as a business expense.

As the costs outweigh the benefits, forestry is at best a hobby or charity. That is why our forests are disappearing and new ones are not being planted.

The Chinese and Indians are more enlightened than we are. They understand that forestry is a renewable source of fuel, building materials, and manufacturing feedstock as well as providing amenity, shelter and flood prevention.

[1] Bill: The Chinese and Indians are more enlightened than we are...

A brief scan of any week's news items will show that almost EVERYONE is more enlightened than we are.

But presumably the other 28 of the top 50 countries are still losing forests? I'm not convinced that we can wait until 2050 for this great reforestation to begin.

surely the big one, the Amazon is still being raped daily, No?

Another eco-non-problem.

One effect of increased CO2 is that plants grow better.

Be all right if they were not planting Australian gums. Nice tree but not a lot grows under them.

Classic case of missing the forest for the trees! Planted trees do not a "forest" make. What a mindless study that would conclude the liquidation of a native, biodiverse forested ecosystem with a biologically sterile monoculture (tree farm) was a even trade.

Tree plantations are no more forests than cornfields are native prairies. A more reasonable study would have focused not on board feet but rather biodiversity, habitat for rare and endangered species, and the sum total of ecosystem services performed by the natural forest, only a miniscule proportion of which can be made up by a tree farm.

I thought as much. OK, some of this good news is down to re-planting however I believe that we have been fooled by "treehuggers" and other such doomsday merchants for years.
So when can we start seeing amazon rainforest furtniture back in the shops instead of MDF rubbish?

Here in the States the timber companies replant commercial trees on their land. On state or federal land they let the reforestation process proceed and in any event in 20 years you have your forrest back. As for the Amazon, I am not sure if it was ever in danger of disappearing but photos from space show it to be more or less the same amount of forrested land. Pretty much the usual green/media/liberal scare tactics.

There is much to be said about the reforestation movement and it means that we are finally recognizing the shelf life of our natural resources. But another key note is to recognize the beauty of old-growth trees as a heritage that can inspire awe and which only old-growth trees seem to be capable. Please explain to me the importance of receiving your news on paper only to throw it away after you are finished! The need for paper files and news papers is out-dated and pointless as evidenced by me typing this right now and your reading it. My point is that change is always attained when traditional people recognize the effect of their however miniscule actions affect others, and the world, around them. Its not about "scare"-its about "aware"

It's funny how misinformation gets publicized. Which satellite photos is Yankee looking at of the Amazon? Most recently, the space shuttle observed an uncountable number of fires burning in the Amazon, continually. Tribes living there have lost land from illegal deforestation. It's not information from the green/liberal scare tactics from any group. It's reality always being subverted by those who don't care about anything unless it affects them directly.

Too bad the leftard mythology is worldwide.

Gim, your pointing out fires in the Amazon forest does NOT show anything to be abnormal. In California the Dept. of Forestry continues to put out natural fires until the dried underbrush and dead growth builds the fuel suppy to the point it causes FIRESTORMS THAT KILL VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING DOWN TO SEVERAL INCHES BELOW THE SURFACE!!!!!

Yosemite is extremely beautiful. The indians, before and after the arrival of the whiteman, called it the Valley of the Smokes. Wanna take a guess why???

Yes, fire is part of the natural ecosystem. A natural forest is DAMP and does not burn out of control except in the occasional drought. Even then the fuel load isn't big enough to destroy everything!!

The fact that farmers have an area of jungle that they rotate their crops through, burning off the jungle growth to prepare the fallow areas, while allowing last years fields to go back to jungle, fits rather well into that NATURAL process. If it were to be extended to expose continuously larger areas of land it would be a problem. Brazil does not allow this to happen.

The fact that the Amazon is a healthy RAIN FOREST means that there will always be fires burning, or, closer to the facts, SMOLDERING!!!

As far as needing a new policy in the US, do any of you GENIUSES have any idea how little forest USED TO BE IN THE APPALACHIANS??? That's right, my forefathers practically deforested the east coast and mid continent. I got news for you, there are good people arguing that we have more actual forest land right NOW than we had when there were just indians running around. They may be RIGHT!! The
FOREST LAND in the US has returned to very close to original!!

GET A CLUE YOU MAN MADE GLOBAL WARNING LAP DOGS!!! THERE IS A REALITY OUT THERE AND THE UN AND GUBMINT PAIDSO CALLED SCIENTISTS AREN'T REPRESENTING IT!!!!

Using the Bristle Cone Pine to provide evidence of global warming, AND, leaving o