Some figures
Forests take up 31 percent of the total surface area of the grounds.
Primary forests - forests made up of indigenous species where no trace of past or present human activity is clearly visible – take up, according to the estimations, 36 percent of the total surface area of the grounds.
Each year, an adult tree rejects on average 15 to 30 kg of surplus oxygen. A grown-up human being consumes 200 to 300kg oxygen a year while breathing, that is to say the annual production of approximately 12 trees!!!
A car approximately consumes 2,8 kg of oxygen per liter of petrol, that is approximately 20kg of oxygen to cover 100km…That corresponds to the production of a tree during a year for every covered 100km.
13 million hectares of forest disappear each year a bit everywhere on the planet and contribute for 20% to the increase of the greenhouse effect, that is to say the equivalent of a football field every 15 seconds.
South America underwent the largest net loss of forests between 2000 and 2010 - approximately 4.0 million hectares a year - followed by Africa, which lost 3.4 million hectares a year.
More or less 4.9 million private vehicles run on the roads of Belgium: all together, they account for 89% of the road traffic and are responsible for 17% of the gas emissions with greenhouse effect in our country. Another striking fact: half of our car trips concern distances of less than… five kilometers!
One hectare of trees can absorb up to six tons of CO2 a year.
One hectare of a 10-year-old forest will only fix 14 tons of carbon equivalent for ten times more for a 50-year-old one. One thus needs a large surface of afforestation to be in phase with the equivalent of our emissions.
When the forester chooses the cut, it will not release a big part of the fixed carbonic gas. The trunk is transformed into furniture, veneering and building units. A house which uses 20 m3 of wood continues to fix 20 tons of carbonic gas! One can thus stretch the period of fixing of carbonic gas well beyond the life of the tree itself. On the other hand, the destruction of the forest by negligence or intention, the slash-and-burn and the fires, brutally release carbonic gas.
