Liberia is situated within the tropical rain forest belt on the West Coast of Africa. The total land area is 9.58 million hectares, of which forests cover about 4.30 million hectares or 45 percent of the land area (see Table 1). In recent years, the forest area has decreased somewhat, largely due to uncontrolled logging and an expansion of land used for agriculture. The annual rate of deforestation is currently estimated to be about 12,000 hectares (0.3 percent), while the recorded planting of new forests to date has amounted to only about 11,000 hectares in total.