Euronews.green writes that many forests around the world are on a decline and experts at UN's Food and Agriculture Organization believe that around 420 million hectares of forests, more than the size of the EU, vanished between 1990 and 2020.

While worldwide, forests cover 31% of the countries, in the EU, the percentage is higher, at 39%. But not all European countries are the same, however, with Finland, Sweden, Slovenia, Estonia and Latvia having over half of their surface covered with forests, while Denmark only has a share of 11% covered in forests and Malta fairs the worst, at 1%.

Part of the reason, experts suggest, is the fact that for some countries, it is more profitable to use the land for other purposes, rather than cover it with forests.

Dr Marcus Lindner, scientist at the European Forest Institute, explains that "if you look at places like the Netherlands or Denmark, they have a very low cover of forests, but they also have a rather economically efficient use of the land."

"Just look at how much food is produced in the Netherlands and if they then convert quite valuable land from agriculture to forestry, then they will actually have much less income."

Some countries, such as Denmark and Ireland, actually recovered from a fairly bad period of missing much of their forested land. Back in the 1800s, Danish authorities say that the country cleared most of its forested land, leaving only 2-3% of its surface covered in forests as a result of uncontrolled clearance for farming.

Ireland found itself in a similar situation at the end of the 19th century, when the country's forest lands were reduced to just 1% green cover, compared to the 80% forested land present 6.000 years ago.

One of the measures European authorities took in order to protect forests around the world is a law which mandates that a large number of the products sold on the European markets should not be linked to deforestation.

Reforestation efforts in some European countries, experts suggest, can be linked to an increase in wood production, which implies planting more trees, while in others, it was nature's ability to regenerate itself, following a stop in the intense human activity.

"Many such areas were traditionally used for grazing and less intensive agricultural use. When this was no longer economically viable, the land was abandoned and then turned back into forest", Dr Lindner explained.

Climate change is one of the biggest enemies that threaten our forests, as this can be the cause of wildfires and an increase in the number of bug infestations, which can kill large chunks of forests.

When compared to other countries in the EU, Romania sits middle of the pack, with 29% of its land covered in forests, a decrease, however, when compared to data from the previous decade, which suggests the country had 32% forest areas.