The relationships of population and forest trends

The relationship between national trends in forest area and population is r eviewed at the global scale. Evidence of an inverse relationship is confirm ed. The relationship, however, may have weakened in recent decades, and it has clearly undergone a reversal in some countries during the nineteenth to twentieth centuries. The theme of a changing relationship through time is thus developed, as is that of an asymmetrical relationship in the sense tha t the forest: area is likely to stabilize before population, on the basis o f modelling from the current demographic relationship, the global forest ar ea should stabilize before the middle of the twenty-first century.