“Borneo’s deforestation rate has been among the world’s highest for over two decades and 56 per cent of the protected tropical lowland forests – an area roughly the size of Belgium – was lost between 1985 and 2001.”
I sometimes wonder how much the “size of Belgium” is used in non-English languages. Here’s a page from a German-Spanish dictionary, about the German phrase “so gross wie” (which means “the size of”).
There is a list of example of the phrase in normal usage, and the very first example is …
“Das ist eine Fläche so groß wie Belgien und die Niederlande zusammengenommen.”
Or in English .. “That is an area the size of Belgium and the Netherlands combined.”.
With great support of national bodies and NGOs, the Ministry of Tourism and Protected Areas of Chubut with Global Penguin Society (GPS) and CENPAT-CONICET, presented the new accolade given province.
For its part, the biologist Pablo Garcia Borboroglu revealed that “this work came when he approached the governor Buzzi the idea of creating a marine reserve in Punta Tombo. Buzzi encouraged us to go further, to us to work for the label Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO. ” García Borboroglu charted that “this protected area, of 3,1 million hectares, has the size of the province of Missions, or of Belgium“.