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Clearing tropical forests for biodiesel production, and in particular those on peatlands leads to far greater carbon emissions than those saved by substituting biofuel for fossil fuel in vehicles. The total forest area of the world is just below 4 billion hectares, nearly 30 percent of Earth’s area. Russia contains the largest forested area, followed by Brazil, Canada, and the United States. Tropical rainforests cover an area larger than Europe.

• Over 1 billion people rely on forests for their livelihoods. Around 60 million indigenous people, about the population of the United Kingdom, depend on forests. A third of the world’s people use biomass fuels, mainly firewood, for cooking and heating.
• The world’s rainforests are home to half of life on earth. The Amazon is the richest biodiversity hotspot in the world, holding about a quarter of land species.
• Tropical and temperate forests absorb around a ton of CO2 per hectare per year from the atmosphere. Due to the depth of peat, one hectare of tropical peat forest can store 3000 to 6000 tons of carbon per hectare.
• The highest levels of deforestation are in South America, with 4.3 million hectares lost per year. The fastest rates of deforestation are in Southeast Asia.
• Deforestation and forest degradation releases about 1.7 billion tons of carbon annually, about 20 percent of global carbon emissions. Total emissions from deforestation in 2008-2012 are expected to equal 40 billion tonnes of CO2.
• The biggest causes of deforestation and forest degradation are agricultural expansion, cattle ranching, road and urban infrastructure development, commercial logging, mining, subsistence farming, and collection of firewood.
• To halve emissions from the forest sector by 2030 through carbon markets would cost between 17 and 33 billion dollars a year, according to some observers. The EU reckons that it would cost 15 to 25 billion Euros every year to halve deforestation by 2020.
  
  

The above Deforestation Index map evaluates 180 countries where high rates of deforestation occurred between 2005 and 2010.
According to the report by Maplecroft, forest degradation is responsible for about 20% of global greenhouse emissions and considered a key contributor of climate change.
The 9 countries where economic growth, poverty, corruption, and the increasing use of biofuels pose the greatest risk to the world’s forests include: Nigeria, Indonesia, North Korea, Bolivia, Papua New Guinea, DR Congo, Nicaragua, and Brazil.
Particularly concerning is Brazil, a country that’s home to 60% of the Amazon rainforest and the richest biodiversity on Earth. The country’s amount of deforestation was at its lowest level in 12 years at the end of 2010, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research. Maplecroft, however, reports that figures from March/April 2011 show deforestation increased 500% since last year. Soy bean production, cattle farming, a rise in ethanol, and massive infrastructure projects are all to blame for the depletion of Brazil’s rainforests.
Surprisingly, China and the U.S.—the world’s first and second largest producers of carbon emissions, respectively—ranked in the bottom five (low risk) on the Deforestation Index. In both countries, heavy investments in reforestation projects have aided the return of forest cover since the 1990s.