Latest Newsletter - Issue 5
Forget about the 'Global Financial Crisis' what about deforestation?
The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.
It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion whereas Wall Street has, by various calculations, lost between $1-$1.5 trillion so far.
The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide. The cost of natural decline dwarfs losses on the financial markets but it's also continuous, happening every year, year after year.
For more information on this and other environmental stories visit: The Green Room on the BBC News website.