We used to lack a basic understanding of how many trees our planet could potentially support. No more: the Crowther Lab's research shows that we could plant 1.6 billion additional hectares of tree cover, making reforestation the top climate change solution – by far. This episode explores this ground-breaking discovery with the scientists who made it.
Despite international efforts to restore forests, we still lack a basic understanding of how much trees could potentially be supported by the land. In their latest paper, the Crowther Lab maps the global potential tree coverage to show that, under current climate conditions, our planet could support 4.4 billion hectares of continuous tree cover. That is 1.6 billion more than existing coverage.