Coir can contribute to promotion of clean energy and for development of cleaner and more efficient environment technologies as it can substitute wood, thereby preventing felling of tropical trees, experts said. The alarming decline in the global tribal forest cover which today is a mere 6 per cent (down from 14 per cent once) has got everyone worried. The rate of deforestation is as high as 7.5 million hectares a year, while forest resources in the third world countries are already reduced by 40 per cent.