Nigeria, Indonesia and North Korea have the worlds highest rates of deforestation while the top two greenhouse gas polluters, China and the United States, have the lowest, a global ranking released on Thursday shows.Nigeria, ranked first in the index, lost just over two million hectares of forest annually between 2005-2010, driven by agricultural expansion, logging and infrastructure development.Growing demand for food and bio-fuels, rising populations, poverty and corruption are driving deforestation in many developing countries, risk analysis and mapping company, Maplecroft, which compiled an index for 180 countries, said.Maplecroft used the latest data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation to calculate changes in the extent of overall forest cover, and in primary and planted forests between 2005-2010.Those at the top are ranked extreme risk. Australia is ranked 10th and listed as high risk, while India, Vietnam and Spain are at the bottom, with low risk. Brazil is ranked number eight.Extreme risk countries are losing plant and animal species that help provide benefits such as clean air from forests, watersheds for rivers and mangroves that protect coastlines, services that help underpin economies.Deforestation can also hamper efforts for a country to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions as forests play key role in mitigating global climate change through carbon sequestration, Maplecroft analyst, Arianna Granziera, told Reuters in an email.Forests soak up and lock away large amounts of CO2, helping to act as a brake on climate change. Yet deforestation is disrupting this cycle and is responsible for at least 10 per cent of mankinds annual greenhouse gas pollution.The index came days before the start of major UN-led climate talks in South Africa in which delegates are expected to discuss ways to try to curb emissions from deforestation.Indonesia is losing about one million hectares (2.5 million acres) of forest a year. Thats about 13 times the size of Singapore, with palm oil expansion accounting for about 16 per cent of deforestation, Maplecroft said.The government in May began a two-year moratorium on issuing new licences to clear primary forests and peat lands and will conduct regular satellite surveillance to monitor the ban.Brazils deforestation fell to 2.2 million hectares annually between 2005 and 2010, but green group WWF said on Wednesday that the recent approval of the revised laws could open up vast amounts of forest to agriculture and cattle ranching.
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