
The Planet Now Has More Trees Than It Did 35 Years Ago - rapnie
https://psmag.com/environment/the-planet-now-has-more-trees-than-it-did-35-years-ago
======
NeedMoreTea
It seem to be the case that we're losing the biodiversity of rainforests and
natural forests, but in their place gaining palm oil plantations, and
monoculture "sustainable" forestry in more temperate regions.

So environmentally it's still a loss that's easy to miss, especially if people
don't look past the headline numbers. At least the article points this out.

~~~
btilly
Also area is not the same as volume. Second growth forest tends to have less
wood than old growth.

I grew up in British Columbia, Canada. I remember when you could see a whole
row of logging trucks driving by carrying one tree. As in, each section of the
tree filled a logging truck. There are trees where that tree was today, but
they represent nowhere near the same amount of carbon stored in the form of
wood.

The article failed to point this factor out.

~~~
toomanybeersies
I'd imagine that on a yearly basis, plantation forests sequester more carbon
than old growth forest. Modern pine trees (especially pinus radiata in NZ) are
incredibly fast growing. Time from planting to harvest is 25-30 years for
pinus radiata.

The old trees that they were cutting down would've been hundreds of years old.
The growth rate of trees slows down over time.

~~~
ItsMe000001
Maybe the sarcasm tag is missing? What's the point of looking at "rate of
growth"? Look at how much wood _there is in total_ at any given point! Trees
that are removed are not exported to somewhere outside earth, so that growing
them faster would remove more carbon.

~~~
richardw
As long as the wood isn't burned it's still removing carbon from the
atmosphere, which is our primary goal. When the carbon was in the ground it
was still fine, we don't need it off-planet.

Metaphor: water as carbon. Thick pipe with faster flow can move as much water
as a slower moving fat pipe. You're focusing on the cross section of the pipe.

~~~
Scarblac
Much of the wood _is_ burned. In the Netherlands (and in the wider EU? Not
sure if this is a national or EU thing) power plants have to burn some
percentage of biomass instead of fossil fuel to meet "sustainability" targets,
and they burn wood pellets imported from the US to do that.

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beloch
This is good news.

You wouldn't know it from reading this article. The orthodoxy on environmental
research and reporting is that everything _must_ be bad news. Humans are
destroying the planet and we're all doomed. The rotten thing is about this
orthodox attitude is that it has created tremendous apathy. If nothing we
humans do can possibly be good and doom is inevitable, why even try?

Here we have a great example of nature's self-rectifying mechanisms in action.
Raise global temperatures and CO2 levels and trees grow bigger in more places
than before, lowering CO2 levels. It is a fundamentally good thing to see this
in action and we really ought to recognize it as such. It means there's hope.
If we change a little nature may pitch in too. i.e. If we can cut down on
deforestation in the places where it's the worst we'll be in a situation where
a significant number of new trees are growing and soaking up CO2 for several
decades.

Good environmental news _is_ possible, and it doesn't have to be interpreted
as meaning everything is okay and we need not do anything, as many clearly
fear. The "everything is bad" orthodoxy has _proven_ far more crippling.

~~~
marcus_holmes
I find the negative reaction to good environmental news indicative of the same
mindset we talked about a couple of weeks ago on HN. That there seems to be
some kind of deathwish around environmental catastrophe. Any sign that the
environment might be able to adapt, or that we're not all doomed, is met with
fierce, angry resistance instead of gratitude and relief.

If the article had said that there are less trees now than there were 35 years
ago, that would be bad news. So the fact that there are more trees is
indisputably good news. It's not the best news. There is undoubtedly better
news that could be announced. But it is good news. It is better than the
assumption that I think most of us had, that global tree cover is declining.

Can't we just be a little bit happy that it's not all utterly terrible?

~~~
birksherty
Nobody is wishing death. People just want pure truth, not sugar coating like
this headline implies.

The biodiversity has been lost, rainforest lost. One tree contains a whole
environment. Various insects, birds, animals depend on it. So all of that is
lost when the tree is cut.

Now some people planted industrial timber plantations, because of money. None
of that is same as what was before. The trees that are planted are not even
the same type.

Suppose a bank takes away a family's home with all objects in it. After that
the bank gives them a plastic chair. There is some positivity in it because
they gained one chair. People are asking why they are not happy about the
chair. Why they bring the home into discussion every time we talk about the
chair? They probably just want to hear sad things and hate the good news.

~~~
marcus_holmes
but that's not the situation. Biodiversity loss is measured in loss of
habitat. More trees = more habitat.

~~~
3x
Biodiversity loss would be measured in loss of biodiversity, I would think.

~~~
marcus_holmes
yeah you'd think so. But that's not how it works. Ecologists estimate species
loss by habitat loss. If a million-hectare forest contains a thousand species,
and half of it is cut down, then 500 species are assumed to be lost.

------
wpasc
This seems likes good news from an environmental standpoint, but its a real
shame that rainforest cover is being lost. I loved reading articles/stories
about rainforests as crazy evolution-based chemistry labs that are ever
engulfed in the world war of insects vs plants vs funghi vs bacteria vs
viruses vs animals. Rainforests are home to some pretty amazing chemistry (and
potential medicinal products, though I see society moving away from medicines
being found in this capacity)

~~~
caymanjim
The developed world went through its industrial and agricultural revolutions
over 100 years ago, and land use hasn't changed dramatically since then.
Developing countries aren't doing anything different; they're just doing it
now. Particular examples of this are Brazilian deforestation and Chinese
pollution.

Given what we now know about the global impact of these activities, it makes
sense that the world pushes back against their development plans. Part of it
is "don't make the same mistakes we did," but most of it is "there's a better
way," and part of it is a realization that the world collectively needs less
pollution and more trees, and since we've already chopped down our trees, we
want Brazil to keep theirs for our (global) benefit.

That latter point is selfish. Yes, it's good for the world as a whole, but the
cost to Brazil is foregoing the benefits of exploiting their resources the
same way other industrialized nations already have. The same applies to China
and pollution. They're doing the same thing the US did for much of the late
19th and early 20th centuries.

The selfish part is denying these countries the right to exploit their land
the way that we already have. If the rest of the world wants Brazil to stop
chopping down forests, they should pay them for it.

~~~
mjevans
The impacted ecosystems are different.

A more ideal solution might be to expand 'national parks' like ideas to a
global scale and "purchase" the land that we as a species want to set aside as
an investment in the continued stability of our ONLY presently viable planet.

~~~
southern_cross
The trouble with an idea like that is that unless there are armed "boots on
the ground" actively protecting them, then those areas may just get exploited
anyway, regardless of who owns them.

------
conorh
There is some interesting research* showing that deforested soils take more
than a thousand years to rebuild their carbon sequestering ability. So even if
there are more trees, we may have done long term damage to the environment:

[https://natureecoevocommunity.nature.com/users/169969-peter-...](https://natureecoevocommunity.nature.com/users/169969-peter-
douglas/posts/37781-the-ancient-maya-and-soil-carbon)

Paper here:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0192-7.epdf](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0192-7.epdf)

* I should disclose that I know the person doing this research!

~~~
southern_cross
The first thing that popped into my head when I read about the Maya thing was
"Those poor folks - if only they'd made good use of fossil fuels!" And it's my
understanding that the now "recovered" forest probably bears little
resemblance to what was there originally.

------
_rpd
Suggest changing link to original article ...

[https://news.mongabay.com/2018/08/earth-has-more-trees-
now-t...](https://news.mongabay.com/2018/08/earth-has-more-trees-now-
than-35-years-ago/)

In particular, the psmag.com article introduces an error in the tree canopy
loss/gain graphs that swaps gross gain and net change.

~~~
Kadin
I wondered if that was PSMag or the original paper doing that. It took me a
while of staring at the charts to finally decide that I'm not going crazy, the
legend was just wrong.

------
_rpd
Reference to actual paper ...

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0411-9.epdf?refer...](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0411-9.epdf?referrer_access_token=wSS7DD_27dV9u4k0XWIDZtRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0O4E2fKOLwTwA0mhaVJlcmkG8kN43ivDG3jHgm8DqdefC6gsxWdgQqF-
pFb05tSpn1wVaC1zqJ8LvJQaH3-hJx9Whl7NaF3he985GA6hrmBhHoYy4-48q4yK93_LTicDl8e1alslZmJxMxmKHbAM35W6OMF7R2VBk-
FaLeFzFce1KQtpMy3fLMIZ0TkyRZYJ774iffNWTMP_LSg4NJQOm52&tracking_referrer=news.mongabay.com)

------
8bitsrule
Tree-number-wise, feels good. But in the very last paragraph: "the study
confirms that some of [Earth's] most productive and biodiverse
biomes—especially tropical forests and savannas—are significantly more damaged
and degraded...

Reforestation isn't a quick fix: "Forest soil may take centuries to recover
carbon sinks damaged by deforestation." (says this report on _Nature_
article:) [https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/carbon-impact-of-
anc...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/carbon-impact-of-ancient-maya-
farming-may-still-be-felt/)

------
zerealshadowban
Neat. There is also vastly more plankton.

------
savanaly
Is it fair to say we never had much to worry about when it comes to preserving
the aspects of the environment over which property rights can be doled out?
e.g. Forests, to some degree, fish in the oceans. Because once the environment
can become private property the owner has all the incentive in the world to
utilize it efficiently and won't over harvest it except through foolishness or
lack of knowledge.

But unfortunately this is not the reality when it comes to climate change,
unless we gave ownership of the Earth to a despot and made it his personal
property.

~~~
Kadin
I don't think that's fair to say at all. Deforestation is a real problem, and
this study doesn't suggest that it's not. There are still large areas of
tropical forest being clear-cut, and the areas that are being reforested are
not nearly as biodiverse. The property owners have no incentive to preserve
biodiversity; quite the opposite. The economic incentive is to clear-cut them
for lumber, then plant single-species cash crops.

Fisheries are being depleted in a totally unsustainable way, and the areas and
species that are well managed are in the minority. There have been some
successes, e.g. North Atlantic lobster (although I don't think the uptick in
lobster populations is necessarily well enough understood to be attributed to
harvest limits), but the growing demand for deepwater fish and the increase in
trawling is doing terrible damage to offshore ecosystems, and there is no
management scheme in place for them.

------
code4tee
This is broadly a good thing—certainly where clearcut areas have been allowed
to return to forest.

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diedyesterday
Some of this has to be a result of higher levels of carbon-dioxide in the
atmosphere and it is a known effect. It's essentially plant-food in the air.
Plants are growing to be bigger (fatter!) and in higher numbers. At least
something good (maybe less diverse) coming out of all that CO2.

------
warmfuzzykitten
Really, all we have to do is stop killing them. Much of New England, now
heavily forested, was cleared by early farmers.

------
PunchTornado
It's good to see Europe, Russia, USA and China doing really well.

But can't we put more pressure on South American? Like tariffs on their goods
if they don't sort it out? Not that I like tariffs...

~~~
pochamago
Just buy up the land and pay property taxes on it.

~~~
vinceguidry
That's extremely untenable from a sovereignty and foreign policy standpoint.
Most countries do not like it when huge fractions of economic segments or
asset classes are owned by foreign interests, and will usually start
obstructing efforts through law / regulation / straight-up theft.

~~~
ggm
Isn't this model pretty much how Costa Rican preserved rainforests were
funded?

I get the sovereign state thing, but there are models of engagement, flawed,
which are like this. My limited understanding is that its not enough to buy
the land: you have to defend it from predation by outsiders/others.

~~~
vinceguidry
There's probably many many more reasons why it's a bad idea, heh. No need to
argue over which one precisely is the best one.

------
mikehines
Finally that’s some good news

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bantersaurus
China seems quite far ahead with their environmental policies.if only we also
experienced the same smog to push our politicians into taking environmental
politics more seriously

~~~
rrmm
We did (to an extent) which is why we implemented the environmental laws we
now have. But living so long without the severe negative environmental impacts
leads us to slacken our resolve, because it's easy to think we got to this
point for free.

