ROME, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Latin America, home of the mighty Amazon jungle, will lose eight percent of its natural forest cover by 2020, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Wednesday.

The area of natural forests in the region will decrease from 964 million hectares (2.38 billion acres) in the year 2002 to 887 million hectares in 2020, the Rome-based FAO said in a report drawn up for a meeting of forestry experts in Costa Rica.

Environmentalists say the expansion of soy plantations and cattle ranches are putting massive pressure on a region which has half of the world＇s tropical forest and almost half of its plant and animal species.

The destruction of forests also releases carbon dioxide, the main "greenhouse gas" linked to climate change, robs poor communities of essential resources, and causes soil erosion and landslides.

However, FAO said that planted, rather than natural, forest areas would increase, from 12 million to more than 16 million hectares by 2020, and that more areas would be designated protected as the region develops.

"With proper mechanisms to finance sustainable forest management, it will be possible to reverse the deforestation trend and conserve forest ecosystems," said FAO forestry export Merilio Morell.

For example, Costa Rica increased forest cover from less than 30 percent of the country to 47 percent within a decade due to a tax on fossil fuel use which goes to help maintain protected areas and support tree planting, the FAO said.

CRISIS
Conservation group WWF said the FAO＇s estimate was conservative and said that plantations, although helpful, were no replacement for natural forests and their biodiversity.

"Deforestation is a crisis in Latin America and it is being fuelled by international markets," WWF＇s Catherine Plume said.

Pressure from expanding soy plantations in Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Bolivia and from cattle rearing throughout the region were a major factor, she said, adding that better land planning and environmental enforcement were essential.

Source: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L20150982.htm