A forest is a large area dominated by trees.
Forests are the dominant terrestrial ecosystem of Earth, cover approximately 31% of the world's land, and contain 80% of the plant biomass.
The Food and Agriculture Organization defines a forest as land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use.
Forests account for 75% of the primary production of the biosphere, 45 % of forests area is tropical, 49% is relatively intact, 9% fragmented.
More than half of the world’s forests are found in only five countries:
- Brazil,
- Canada,
- China,
- Russian Federation,
- United States of America.
