NASA satellite data verified at least 1/4 of the world’s green leaf area increase since the 2000s was due to Chinese efforts. What went on here and are China’s newly planted forests as successful as they claim? Tune in this episode of In Fact with Kyle Obermann. #InFact
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
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.