More trees than 35 years ago: the green shift that upends the narrative

More trees than 35 years ago: the figure that upends the narrative

Global tree cover has grown by 2.24 million square kilometers over the past 35 years. That is the equivalent of adding Texas and Alaska. And it is not a lobby saying it: the finding was published in a study in Nature, even though it is circulating again now with no expiry date.

The figure clashes with the usual noise. Deforestation, wildfires, droughts, pests. And yet the net balance is green. The explanation people like least: more heat and more CO2 are, quite simply, good for plants.

Spain, from empty land to forest

The Spanish case is even more awkward. According to the Inventario Forestal Nacional (Spain's National Forest Inventory), wooded area has grown from around 13.8 million to more than 18.4 million hectares in 35 years: a 33% increase. Old photographs confirm it without any need for statistics: slopes that are now dense woodland were almost bare.

The cause is not a grand environmental policy, but the abandonment of rural areas. Fewer people in the countryside, less firewood, less timber construction and less paper. The forest has recolonized what humans stopped exploiting.

Here the analysis splits. Some conclude that catastrophism loses its empirical footing: if desertification were truly advancing, forest area would not be increasing. Others point out that the extra biomass itself is the fuel for increasingly violent wildfires. And a third, more cynical camp notes that the study was published in 2018 and is being served up as news.

The awkward question remains: if the planet is already greening on its own, how much of the tree-planting business and the desert narrative is genuine necessity and how much is armchair posturing?