{"id":36119,"date":"2025-06-11T13:22:49","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T11:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/?p=36119"},"modified":"2025-06-11T13:28:53","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T11:28:53","slug":"forest-restoration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/2025\/06\/11\/forest-restoration\/","title":{"rendered":"Reforestation: smaller global potential, but still the biggest solution for carbon removal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reforestation, defined as the restoration of forest cover through tree planting, direct seeding, or natural regrowth in places where forests naturally exist but are currently absent, is an important strategy for Climate change mitigation. It is part of the broader concept of natural climate solutions (NCS), which includes ecosystem management actions to protect, manage and restore natural and managed areas to provide measurable climate change mitigation. Reforestation is particularly promising as it is considered the largest and most cost-effective option for removing carbon from the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Many maps have been produced at the global level to identify areas technically and\/or optimally suited for reforestation to mitigate climate change. However, five major global maps (FLRO, Griscom, Bastin, Strassburg and Walker) have been the subject of considerable criticism. The criticism has focused on three main points: (1) definitions<\/strong> (assumptions determining where reforestation can technically occur), (2) data<\/strong> (limitations of the source data used) and (3) safety precautions<\/strong> (failure to consider possible negative or undesirable consequences). These criticisms have led to uncertainty for decision-makers about the true extent of global reforestation opportunities.<\/p>\n

New study<\/span><\/a> set out to address these criticisms. Based on a review of 89 existing reforestation maps and using the latest high-resolution global datasets, the authors created a set of global maps that demonstrate how areas of opportunity vary depending on different value choices.<\/p>\n

The key difference in the new approach is a more conservative definition of forest<\/strong> and forest potential. Forests were defined more strictly as areas that can support 60 % or more of tree cover to exclude open forests and savannas, where increasing tree cover can have negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Areas with frequent fires (at least two non-agricultural fires in two decades) were also excluded when mapping forest potential, as fire can naturally limit tree density and affect durability<\/strong> carbon storage.<\/p>\n

After identifying the forest potential (2242 Mha), the authors then determined the maximum reforestation potential by excluding implementation barriers (such as existing forests, water, bare ground, permanent ice\/snow). This resulted in an area of 305 Mha. Finally, they applied additional safety precautions<\/strong>, which serve to prevent undesirable outcomes, such as the exclusion of agricultural areas, built-up areas, wetlands, peatlands and areas where net climate benefit negative due to albedo changes<\/strong> (reflectivity of the Earth's surface).<\/p>\n

The result of these conservative steps and the inclusion of safety measures is constrained reforestation potential<\/strong>, which represents up to 195 Mha<\/strong>This area is significantly smaller \u2013 71 to 92 % smaller<\/strong> \u2013 than the estimates of limited reforestation potential identified in previous global products. This difference is primarily attributed to more conservative modeling choices, the inclusion of safeguards, and the use of newer, higher-resolution datasets.<\/p>\n

Despite the smaller estimated area, reforestation of this 195 Mha area could yield a total net climate mitigation potential of up to 2225 TgCO2e (teragrams of carbon dioxide equivalent) per year<\/strong> during the first 30 years of regrowth, after subtracting albedo effects. This amount corresponds to approximately 5 %<\/strong> of the sum of global emissions from fossil fuels and land use change in 2022. The study thus highlights that reforestation still offers significant potential for climate change mitigation and remains the largest carbon removal solution available<\/strong>It is also important to consider additionalities<\/strong> \u2013 whether the climate benefit exceeds conventional forest restoration. It is estimated that a large part of this potential (88.7 %) would be additional.<\/p>\n

The study also examined how various additional considerations and scenarios (such as individual rights, secure land tenure, ecosystem services, or existing government policies regarding forest restoration) affect the potential area for reforestation. These scenarios further reduce the available area and climate mitigation potential. For example, if we focus only on legally protected areas, the potential drops to the lowest value: 6.3 Mha<\/strong>, with a mitigation potential of 53 TgCO2e per year. This suggests that to achieve many of the potential benefits of reforestation, it will be necessary mix of land and incentives for renewal<\/strong>because few sites meet multiple criteria simultaneously.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, using a conservative approach that includes safeguards that take into account biodiversity, ecosystem services, durability<\/strong> carbon storage, sustainability and social aspects, and by using current high-resolution data, this study provides a more realistic and less problematic estimate of the potential of reforestation for climate change mitigation. Although the area estimates are significantly smaller, reforestation remains a key tool in the fight against climate change, and the application of these considerations better supports smart steps towards meaningful and equitable climate change mitigation<\/strong>. Spring<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Glossary of Key Terms:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • Reforestation:<\/strong> Restoration of forest cover through tree planting, direct seeding or natural regeneration in places where forests are absent but naturally occur.<\/li>\n
  • Natural Climate Solutions (NCS):<\/strong> Ecosystem management actions that protect, manage and restore natural and managed lands to provide measurable climate change mitigation.<\/li>\n
  • Forest Potential:<\/strong> An area where forest growth can occur based on bioclimatic and other environmental factors.<\/li>\n
  • Maximum Reforestation Potential:<\/strong> Area within forest potential where additional forest could grow, taking into account practical implementation constraints (e.g. exclusion of existing forest, water).<\/li>\n
  • Constrained Reforestation Potential:<\/strong> An area within maximum afforestation potential, which additionally takes into account safeguards to minimize the perverse consequences of afforestation (e.g. exclusion of agricultural land, wetlands).<\/li>\n
  • TgCO2e (Teragrams of Carbon Dioxide Equivalent):<\/strong> A unit used to express the amount of greenhouse gases in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent. The annual net climate change mitigation in an article is expressed in this unit.<\/li>\n
  • Additionality:<\/strong> In the context of afforestation for climate mitigation, the principle that mitigation must go beyond what would have happened even without the specific afforestation activity (basic forest restoration).<\/li>\n
  • Albedo:<\/strong> Surface reflectance. Changes in albedo after afforestation (darker forest surfaces absorb more sunlight) can have an impact on the net climate benefit, especially at more northern latitudes.<\/li>\n
  • Land Use\/Land Cover (LULC):<\/strong> The classification of the Earth's surface based on what it is covered with (land cover) and how it is used (land use). LULC maps are a key input for mapping afforestation potential.<\/li>\n
  • Overlays:<\/strong> Additional datasets or factors used to provide context for afforestation potential maps. They can help prioritize areas based on different objectives or considerations (e.g. biodiversity, water quality, social aspects).<\/li>\n
  • Perverse Outcomes:<\/strong> Undesirable or harmful outcomes of afforestation activity that result from insufficient consideration of broader ecological, social, or economic factors.<\/li>\n
  • Land Tenure:<\/strong> A system by which land rights (ownership, use, management) are allocated and protected within a community. Secure land rights are often considered conducive to successful afforestation projects.<\/li>\n<\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Reforestation, defined as the restoration of forest cover through tree planting, direct seeding, or natural regrowth in places where forests naturally exist but are currently absent, is an important strategy for<\/p>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-klimaticka-zmena","category-znizovanie_co2_cdr_ccs_ccu_dac"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}