7 September 2015, Durban/Rome--- The world’s forests continue to shrink as populations increase and forest land is converted to agriculture and other uses, but over the past 25 years the rate of net global deforestation has slowed down by more than 50 percent, FAO said in a report published today. Some 129 million hectares of forest – an area almost equivalent in size to South Africa – have been lost since 1990, according to FAO’s most comprehensive forest review to date, The Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015. The FAO study covers 234 countries and territories and was presented at this week’s World Forestry Congress in Durban, South Africa.