The World Bank and the World Wildlife Fund has announced a five-year program to combat the alarming disappearance of the world's trees.
The two organisations announced the five-year extension of the Forest Alliance on the sideline of the UN Forum on Forests, a two-week meeting of more than 300 government officials which is reviewing the effectiveness of work to save and protect forests.

"The overall goal of the extension of our alliance is to achieve a 10 per cent annual net reduction of global deforestation by 2010, and then gradually turn the deforestation rate into a stabilisation and an increase of forest area," Martin said.
The two organisations, which established a Forest Alliance in 1998, said they will intensify their efforts to support new forest protected areas such as national parks, more effective management of already protected areas, and improved management of forests that are not yet protected.
"Ecologically and economically valuable forests in places like the boreal forests of Russia's Far East, the lowland forests of Sumatra (in Indonesia), and the rainforests of the Amazon and the Congo are disappearing quickly to forces such as illegal or poorly regulated logging and agricultural clearing," said Claude Marin, the World Wildlife Fund's director-general.
In the 1990s, the deforestation rate was estimated at more than 14 million hectares per year, but 5.2 million hectares of forest were also gained through new planting and natural expansion - leaving an annual net loss of 9.4 million hectares, according to a recent UN report.
World Bank studies estimate that $US15 billion ($A19.72 billion) in tax revenues is lost annually in developing countries due to illegal logging.
"This is money that governments in poor countries could have used for social services and health, Ian Johnson, the World Bank's vice president for sustainable development", said in a statement.
"These practices need to be stopped."
Since 1998, the alliance said it has contributed to the establishment of 50 million hectares of new protected areas, improved management for 70 million hectares of protected areas, and responsible management of some 22 million hectares of forests which are used commercially.
"The alliance has mobilised about $US50 million ($A65.74 million) in direct investment and leveraged about $US300 million ($A394.43 million) on long-term project finance for many of these projects - and we are confident that we will be on a trajectory where we will further enhance these sort of contributions," Martin said.
"By 2010, we envisage to increase the protected areas coverage by another 25 million hectares and will have demonstrated improved management in another 75 million hectares," he said.
Ken Newcombe, the World Bank's senior manager for sustainable development, said the alliance wants to put 300 million hectares under some form of improved forest management.

"We must reach out further," he said, stressing the importance of bringing in more countries, governments, and local communities which rely on forests.
Gabon's Deputy Environment Minister Alexandre Hugues Barro Chambrier urged the alliance to mobilise financing and continue supporting a treaty signed by seven Central African countries in February to help save the world's second largest rain forest in the Congo Basin.
Tachrir Fathoni, secretary of Indonesia's Forest Protection and Conservation Agency, said the government has used an assessment which was supported by the alliance to develop a new policy to prevent illegal logging and "protect our forests for present and future generations".