Forests are disappearing at a rate of about 36 football fields per minute.1 That equates to an annual loss of 12-15 million hectares of forest, which is an area roughly the size of Costa Rica.2 The United States Forest Service defines “forest” as land that is at least one acre and at least 10 percent stocked with trees of any size.3 Forests cover almost a third of the planet,4 but they are NOT distributed equally—about half of the forests on Earth are located in the tropics.5 The clearing of forests by logging or burning is called “deforestation.”6