Restoring forests may be one of our most powerful weapons in fighting climate change. A 2019 study found that adding 2.2 billion acres of tree cover would capture two-thirds of human-made carbon emissions. We’ve cut down 46% of all trees since the 1990s and lost a whopping 1.3 million square km of forest.
Allowing our forests to recover could soak up a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions, according to “The global tree restoration potential” report published in last year which used direct measurements of forest cover to generate a model of forest restoration potential across the globe. Their maps show how much additional tree cover could exist outside of existing forests and agricultural and urban land.
Ecosystems could support an additional 0.9 billion hectares of continuous forest which would represent a greater than 25% increase in forested area. Such a change has the potential to store an equivalent of 25% of the current atmospheric carbon pool.
Sources: Vox, Thomas Crowther of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Bastin et al
