This is because all past forest inventories were either partial (not covering the whole country) or incomplete. The FAO Africover project (2003) provides data for the year 2000 which considered as the most reliable data for the country. However definitions and codes of Africover included large range of categories which have to be sub grouped to give land use and forest categories. First a reclassification method based on the Land Cover Classification Code and the definition of Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) 2005 was successfully developed. To analyse and estimate the deforestation rate, data obtained 28 years ago allow an estimate the change on forest cover and conditions. Then forest cover maps were produced using reclassified forest inventory data and a geographic information system (GIS) quantively.

The results of the National Energy Administration (NEA) survey conducted in 1982 under the USAID Energy Policy and Planning Project (using Landsat images of 1972) and the results obtained by the Africover Project (2000) are the most reliable sets of information with regard to forestry resource extent and composition in the country.

Using forest areas of the year 2000 (when Africover was conducted) with those of the year 1972 which is chosen as the reference year (when the Landsat images were produced), the annual deforestation rate was calculated as 0.589 million ha (0.8% total forested area

The following table shows the extent of Forest and Other Wooded Land for the years 1990, 2000 and 2005.

Forest cover 1990-2005

             Source: FRA 2005