Namibia covers an area of some 825 000 km2. The population, estimated at 1.7 million people, of whom 68 percent live in rural areas, is growing at an annual rate of three percent. Urban populations, fed by rural-to-urban migration, are growing faster than rural populations at an annual five percent compared to two percent in rural areas. In northern Namibia, where both human and tree populations are highest, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism carried out a major forest cover mapping exercise in 1996 on some 28 430 000 ha. The study found that 6.4 percent of the area was under extensive, subsistence cropping on woodlands and savannah; 0.3 percent was intensively cropped; 54.3 percent was open grassland and 26 percent was woodland. The remaining, treeless, 13 percent was comprised of open water, grasslands and valley bottoms (MET, 1996).