For decades, planting a tree has been universally understood as a good thing for Earth. In recent years, people have upped the scale, leaning on the idea of tree-planting to help mitigate climate change. The U.S. has its own billion-dollar plan. Globally, there’s the World Economic Forum’s one trillion trees initiative. Yet, despite the growing popularity of tree-planting, in many cases simply putting saplings in the ground isn’t an ecological win. When people plant trees where trees are not supposed to grow, environmental harm–not healing–can result, as exemplified in a new analysis published February 15 in the journal Science.
Reforestation vs. afforestration
More than 70 million hectares of savannah and other non-forest habitat across Africa–in total, an area larger than the country of France–are slated for ill-advised and erroneous afforestation, according to the study. Reforestation is the process of bringing trees back to a place they’ve been removed from. In contrast, afforestation means creating forest where it hasn’t previously, naturally grown, and it’s something that people are doing in many parts of the world–from Brazil to Kazakhstan to India. In Africa, misclassification of grassland landscapes, which can include some trees but aren’t forests, means that many countries and non-governmental organizations have committed to planting trees on what should be open habitat, the researchers claim.
“I think it’s fantastic and really timely and important work,” Meredith Martin, an assistant forestry and environmental resources professor at North Carolina State University, says of the analysis. Martin was not involved in the new study, but has similarly researched tree-planting initiatives. “In the past several years, there’s been this huge boom and interest in…
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