According to the Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) 2010 announced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2010, the world's total forest area is 4.03 billion hectares, which accounts for approximately 31% of the total land area on earth. However, from 2000 to 2010, an annual average of 13 million hectares of forest was lost. Even when taking account of increases due to afforestation, the net loss was 5.2 million hectares per year. These decreases were particularly large in the tropical forests in South America and Africa.

In order to control this deforestation and forest degradation, the Ministry of the Environment has made the efforts to promote public awareness on the “illegal logging problem,” which is an obstruction to sustainable forest management, and forest conservation though partnerships between corporations and NGO/NPOs.