The global tree restoration potential

Citation: Jean-Francois Bastin, Yelena Finegold, Claude Garcia, Danilo Mollicone, Marcelo Rezende, Devin Routh, Constantin M. Zohner, Thomas W. Crowther The global tree restoration potential.
DOI (original publisher): 10.1126/science.aax0848
Semantic Scholar (metadata): 10.1126/science.aax0848
Sci-Hub (fulltext): 10.1126/science.aax0848
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): The global tree restoration potential
Wikidata (metadata): Q65548762
Tagged:

Summary

Used 78k photo interpretations of tree cover in protected areas across the world and random forest machine learning to examine environmental drivers of tree cover and generate a predictive model of potential tree cover across ecosystems, ie earth's tree cover carrying capacity given the current climate: 4.4b hectares. Excluding existing trees, agricultural, urban areas, found that there is room for 0.9b more hectares of canopy cover, which could store 205 gigatonnes of carbon in areas. Estimate that given climate change trajectory, global potential canopy cover may shrink by ~223m hectares by 2050, with the vast majority of losses occurring in the tropics.