The table compares four nations namely Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Chile in terms of the proportion of land covered by forest in 1990, 2005 and 2015.
Overall, it is clear that there was an upward trend in the rates of land covered by forests of New Zealand and Chile, whereas the figures for Australia and Brazil decreased. Notably, in spite of the most significant decrease in the proportion of Brazil, it always took the first place having the most forests.
First of all, two countries had a growth in the percentage of land covered by forests, New Zealand and Chile. Australia’s proportion stood at 28.8 percent in 1990 before slightly rising by 2.2 percent to 31.0 percent in 2005 and continuously growing to 32.3 percent in 2015. Although New Zealand and Chile had the similar pattern, Chile increased more gradually than its counterpart. Chile’s percentage is firstly the lowest number compared to the other, at 20.4% and then it surpassed Australia in 2005 with 21.5% and slowly reached 22.0% at the end of the examined period.
As for the drop in the rates of the two remaining countries, Australia and Brazil. The percentage of land covered by forest in Brazil was 62.2% in 1990, and 5.0% of that was eliminated after 15 years. It followed a great decline to 53.5% in 2015, however it was still the country with the most forests. Contrastingly, the figure for Australia fell more slightly, starting from 21.9 in 1990 to 21,3 and 20.0 in 2005 and 2015, respectively.