The differences between the official figures and NGO estimates are largely due to how forest is defined.
The RFD includes forest reserve lands, despite the fact that much of the area labeled as such has been cleared.
They also include economic and productive forests, including monocrop plantations such as eucalyptus forests.
Environmental NGOs rarely consider these lands as forested.
The forest reserve lands are particularly problematic as even areas which still have forest cover (usually secondary forest) tend to be inhabited by small-scale farmers who either lived there at the time the government designated it as forest reserve land or later migrated into the area in search of land.
These people have no legal title to the land although they depend on it for their livelihood.