Chapter 7 : Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry (c) Asia-Pacific

The Asia-Pacific region supports 15% of the Earth’s total forest and woodland cover. Combined, Australia, China and Indonesia have approximately 69% of the regions forests. Regional land use is driven by the need to provide the densely populated region with both food and economic growth. As such, the Asia-Pacific faces strong socio-economic and industrial-political pressure to maximize production on all available land. Accordingly, this has resulted in high diversity between regulatory instruments governing land use change and the management of forests between sovereign nations. Whilst land clearing has slowed or is being reversed in some countries, its rates of change are not sustainable across the Asia-Pacific