00:00Five years ago, a paper published in one of the world's most prestigious peer-reviewed journals
00:04made headlines across the world. The authors used NASA satellite data to claim that at least
00:09one-fourth of the world's greenleaf area increase since the 2000s was due to Chinese tree planting
00:14efforts. Some celebrated, some couldn't believe it. What went on here? And are China's newly
00:20planted forests as successful as they claim?
00:38Let's get the bad news over first. In the last century, humans have removed forests from the
00:42earth amounting to an area the size of the United States. And we continue to remove about a Bosnia
00:47size worth of forested land every single year. This could be disastrous for biodiversity and
00:53the climate. And in many places, it already has. Now the good. Forest loss and recovery usually
01:00follows a U-shaped curve. Poor nations with growing populations develop their economy via
01:05deforestation and the creation of more agricultural land. But as they get richer, population growth
01:11slows, crop yield improves, and local populations burn less wood for energy. Forests recover, so long
01:18as demand isn't driven by foreign exports. So to take Scotland for example, a millennium ago, 20%
01:25of its land was covered in forest. By the late 1800s post-industrial revolution, that number went
01:30down to five. Today, it's back up throughout 18%. France and England have similar curves.
01:37China's forestry story is similar. After new China was founded in 1949, China aimed to economically
01:44recover from decades of war and exploitation by Western empires. Vast swaths of its forest
01:49were felled again. But after that, things began to slowly change.
01:55In 1956, the year that China established its first nature reserve, Mao Zedong announced a 12-year
02:02greening campaign in an attempt to reverse the ecological damage. 20 years later, net forest
02:07loss had been stopped, but the net gain was less than one percentage point. The following period
02:13witnessed radical economic and social change across China, which was accompanied by land
02:17reforms and a series of programs designed to incentivize tree planting. From 1978 to today,
02:24China's forest area increased by 72%, essentially adding 970,000 kilometers squared of forested land
02:31an area over twice the size of Sweden. So especially after the devastating Yangtze River
02:37floods of 1998, China has continuously given forests better legal protection and particularly
02:43targeted areas affected by desertification, erosion, and of course flooding. Massive and
02:49unprecedented projects like the Great Green Wall are attempting to shield almost half of the nation
02:54from desertification via tree planting. And the project continues. By 2035, China plans to add
03:01additional forest area equal to the size of Italy. And did you know? In principle, most Chinese
03:07citizens are actually required to plant three to five trees a year. There's even an entire government
03:12website set up to help them do it. And it's under these types of citizen involvement programs that
03:17regular Chinese people have planted 78 billion trees in the last 40 years, including the 400
03:23million planted via the Ant Forest in-app game. I mean, it's so easy, I've even planted 13.
03:32However, China's programs have faced challenges too, which have taught the government and the rest of the world
03:37important lessons about how to plant a forest. Many efforts in tree planting created homogenous
03:42tracts of single-species young woods, monocultures, that grew fast but lacked biodiversity. Policies
03:49that financially rewarded planting of specific species backfired when cuttings lifespans were
03:54not as long as expected or people began removing natural forests to plant ones for profit.
04:00But I asked Dr. Yu what lessons China learned. The first one is the importance of tree species selection.
04:06The second one is they are enhancing the forest quality. It's as important as increasing forest
04:14coverage. And the third one is we need to keep in mind that trees are not always the best choice
04:21for every location. And the most important thing I want to stress is that the forestation should be
04:28adapted to the local conditions, including the climate, soil, biodiversity, and social factors.
04:36The real litmus test for success will be the future, and China is well on track to meet its
04:4026% forest coverage goal by 2026. It also leads the world in annual forest coverage increase.
04:47This is good news for the climate. We know that we have to focus on two things. One is to reduce
04:52the carbon emission, and the other thing is to enhance the carbon uptake by land ecosystems.
04:58The net carbon absorbed by China's land ecosystem is around like 200 to 300
05:07millitons per year, with forests contributing to 65 to 82 percent of this absorption. Of course,
05:15it's important to reiterate here that human-created forests are less effective at doing so than
05:19natural ones. So the best way to green the planet is not to cut down what we already have.
05:24But China has proven it's possible to reforest a nation, and they are now spreading their
05:28experience along belt and road nations. And hopefully, one day in the future, we won't have to reforest at all.
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