All but seven per cent of the world’s tropical forests are “managed poorly or not at all” despite efforts to boost sustainability, according to a major report.

Forces driving forest destruction across four continents – including rising food and fuel prices, and growing demand for timber – threaten to overwhelm future conservation efforts, warned the 420-page study by the Japan-based International Tropical Timber Organisation, an intergovernmental agency group that promotes sustainable use of forests.

“Less than 10 per cent of all forests are sustainably managed, and we expect deforestation to continue,” said Steven Johnson, ITTO’s communications director.

“The economic rationale is just so compelling. Revenue streams coming from standing forests just can’t compete against conversion to agriculture or biofuel crops, pasture land for livestock, or palm oil plantation,” he said by phone.

Tropical forests play an essential role in earth’s carbon cycle, absorbing about a quarter of CO² emissions generated by human activity.

Deforestation, which releases stored carbon, accounts for 10 to 20 per cent of greenhouse-gas emissions globally.

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