Its population growth is 2.5 percent per year. Forests cover 33 percent of land area, it has mixed landscapes in the uplands with interspersed trees, crops and arable land, and dense tropical forest with larger-scale agriculture in the lowlands. Guatemala is exceptionally rich in biodiversity and 70 percent of forest land comes under some form of protection. Although Guatemala is experiencing solid economic growth, poverty rates remain high and are not falling: they were estimated at 56 percent in 2000 and had risen to 59 percent in 2015.