Africa is suffering deforestation at twice the world rate and the continent's few glaciers are shrinking fast, according to a U.N. atlas. Satellite pictures, often taken three decades apart, showed expanding cities, pollution, deforestation and climate change were damaging the African environment despite glimmers of improvement in some areas. "Africa is losing more than 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) of forest every year -- twice the world's average deforestation rate," according to a statement by the U.N. Environment Program about the 400-page atlas, prepared for a meeting of African environment ministers in. Four million hectares is roughly the size of or slightly bigger than the state of Maryland.
