The Philippines forest cover expanded 2.9 percent in five years from 2015 to 2020, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
The annual crop area, however, shrank 2.84 percent to 5.94 million ha. from 6.12 million ha. in the same period.
“Statistics on land cover changes in the Philippines reveals specific trends in forest cover across various regions. In 2020, the Philippines’ total open and closed forest cover reached 6.91 million hectares or 23.4 percent of the total land cover. This indicates a growth of 2.9 percent or 193,354 ha from 6.72 million ha in 2015,” the PSA said in the latest Land Asset Accounts of the Philippines.
It said that in particular, the closed forest cover grew by 9.3 percent, or 189,356 ha. from 2.03 million ha. in 2015.
The PSA said that at the regional level, the highest contribution to the growth of closed forest was recorded in Central Luzon (1.8 percentage points), MIMAROPA (1.4 percentage points), and Northern Mindanao (1.2 percentage points).
Open forest cover also grew by 0.1 percent, or 3,998 ha., from 4.69 million ha. in 2015.
The Land Asset Accounts of the Philippines aims to describe the changes of the country’s area in terms of the land cover types from the beginning to the end of the reference period.
The country’s total land area is 29,588,367 hectares (ha), which covers the forest area (closed, open, and mangrove), brush and shrubs, open/barren, grassland, marshland/swamp, annual and perennial crop, fishpond, built-up, inland water, and sea and ocean.
The PSA said that in the same year, built-up land cover in the Philippines grew to 1.03 million ha., an increase of 20.6 percent from 850,249 ha in 2015.
Central Luzon contributed a 2.9-percentage-point increase to the total land cover built-up and shared a total of 142,632 ha (13.9 percent) to the country’s built-up land cover.
It was followed by CALABARZON with a share to total built-up of 138,919 ha (13.5 percent) and Central Visayas with 73,165 ha (7.1 percent).
Perennial crop recorded the largest percentage shares of land cover area, covering 6.57 million ha. or 22.2 percent of the total land cover area.