U.S. Loses 350,000 Acres of Forest a Year — SkimNews
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- A new satellite tracking system found that the United States has lost 350,000 acres of forest land per year.
- The estimated loss rate was approximately one football field every two minutes.
- Stored carbon dioxide in U.S. forests was released through forest loss, providing the mechanism behind the emissions estimate.
- The annual loss was equivalent to 2.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
Why it matters: For the United States, the 350,000-acre annual loss is a direct measure of forest depletion, while the 2.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide quantify the emissions tied to the release of stored forest carbon. Together, the figures establish the scale of both the land loss and its carbon consequence.
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