Mapping the 1.6 billion people who live near forests
(WorldNews Environment)

Global maps of places where people and forests coexist show that an estimated 1.6 billion people live within 5 kilometers of a forest. The assessment, based on data from 2000 and 2012 and published September 18 in the journal One Earth, showed that of these 1.6 billion `forest-proximate people,` 64.5 percent were located in tropical countries, and 71.3 percent lived in countries classified as low or middle income by the World Bank. `There were no data at all on how many people live in and around forests globally,` says first author Peter Newton,...