Kenya is losing 19,000 hectares of forests each year. Environment minister Newton Kulundu said forest cover had drastically decreased over the last 20 years to 1.7 per cent. New technology was required in forest management to reduce destruction, he told a workshop on tree biotechnology in Nairobi. "We need to increase our forest acreage to enable us to benefit fully from the trees," he said. More than 80 per cent of the population depended on forests for fuel and the cover should be increased if the supply is to be sustained.