In unprotected areas, by contrast, 60% of the natural vegetation was lost between 1964 and 1992, and 86% of the native vegatation of recent lava flows.
Fig. 4 The figure shows the mathematical impact of global warming changing the functional gene-derived metabolic work of the vegetation and forcing the species becoming survival for the fittest while vegetation community losing its diversity.
But instead of adapting we are scraping the land, removing the vegetation and losing the soil.
Furthermore, 64% of Mexico's municipalities have lost vegetation cover, whereas only 36% have either gained vegetation or remained stable.
Mr. McAllister, a longtime critic of the county's mosquito-control programs and chemicals used in them, said the lost vegetation also decreased a wetland's ability to filter pollutants.
Dr Heather Keith from ANU's Fenner School of Environment and Society, who co-wrote a 2009 study on the woodland's carbon value, said it would be "reasonable to say that most of the carbon in the vegetation would be lost".
Scattered trees are highly visible reminders of lost vegetation in many intensively managed agricultural landscapes globally.
Vegetation can be lost through a combination of human and natural processes, leading to areas of exposed bare peat frequently accompanied by loss of surface moisture due to drainage or gullying.
But Steve Pyne, an environmental historian at the University of Texas who has studied fires in forests, said that how bad things became depended on what replaced the vegetation that was being lost.
I knew there were people who climbed mountains just to look, but whatever connections they were making with patches of earth, unresponsive vegetation and rocks were lost on me.
