Surprise! The world has more trees than you probably think
New study finds that trees cover a significant portion of the world’s farmlands.
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor/ October 27, 2009 edition
People often blame agriculture for deforestation: Farmers, the thinking goes, clear trees to plant their crops.
But a new study by scientists at the World Agroforestry Centre, whose headquarters is in Nairobi, Kenya, casts doubt on this paradigm.
Satellite imagery reveals that trees cover a significant portion of the world’s agricultural lands – more than 247 million acres in all.
Some regions have more trees over fields than others:
In Central America, for instance, farmed land has at least 10 percent tree cover. (Note: This is a correction. The original omitted “10 percent.”)
In South America and Southeast Asia, about 80 percent of the farmlands have more than 10 percent tree cover. (Note: This is a correction. The original omitted “more than 10 percent.”)
In sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and North America, trees shade 40 percent of cultivated land. That’s especially notable for Europe and North America, say the authors, given these regions’ dominance by large-scale, industrial agriculture.
The greater point: Contrary to popular conception, trees are an integral part of the agricultural landscape around the world.
The authors also note that high population density doesn’t always correlate with low tree cover – another common assumption. Some sparsely populated areas have few trees; some densely populated ones have many.
And the pattern can’t always be explained by climate either.
In the authors’ view, this discovery highlights the importance of nonenvironmental factors in tree planting and retention. Among them are land tenure rights and availability of markets for tree products. If a farmer has nowhere to sell the product, there’s no incentive to plant that tree.
Editor’s note: This article is one of a series of brief updates on environmental studies of interest. For more articles about the environment, see the Monitor’s main environment page, which offers information on many environment topics. Also, check out our Bright Green blog archive and our RSS feed.
( More stories )
Comments
2. Think Again | 10.28.09
“In Central America, for instance, trees cover almost all farmed land”
What nonsense!
Banana and casava plantations are not trees!
BTW - trees yeild only fruit and nuts. Most human diet is grain and legumes - which grow not in trees, but cleared fields.
Where do these idiots get their info?
4. Daniel | 10.28.09
I have not seen trees shade farm land in America, and supposedly 40% are shaded. Numbers don’t seem right.
5. David L. | 10.28.09
It is so refreshing to see a news report that is positive! This article made my day, thank you Moises Velasquez-Manoff.
6. Carlos | 10.28.09
I don´t this sounds to good to be true. It can be done for example in some vegetable fieds the sorrounding trees are planted to stop erotion and to be use for wood or to produce fruits. It can be done in small scale farming. However I dont know about large scale grain production.
7. Antonio Trabucco | 10.29.09
The terminology used in this article is not precise. The study reports that that tree cover is an important component of farmland dominated landscape. In such farming landscape, areas with tree cover greater than 10% are found on 247 millions of Acres worldwide.
Instead of:
“In Central America, for instance, trees cover almost all farmed land”
The article should rather state:
In Central America, for instance, almost all landscape dominated by farmland has at least 10% tree canopy cover.
This farmland include obviously banana and other tree crop plantations. The relevance of such a study shows that agricultural landscape do support significant carbon stock. I say this because the agricultural management is excluded all together from any discussion of Post Kyoto protocol.
8. Larry Carlson | 11.01.09
I agree with Joe Tieger. Many trees (definition is debatable) do not make a forest. Large masses of trees with associated wildlife are forests. Farm land cannot qualify.
9. J Cline | 11.02.09
The author didn’t say anything about forests. He said TREES. And yes, for those who flunked plant biology, bananas DO grow on trees.
Having said that, I myself would prefer more forests and less trees.
10. matt vesh | 11.02.09
No thank you Moises Velasquez-Manoff; the only thing this article highlights is your dismal understanding of ecology.
11. Jim C | 11.04.09
First of all, the article says nothing about forests. it talks only about trees. and integrating trees into agriculture is a positive thing for people. Second, J. Cline you are wrong. Bananas do NOT grow on trees. Bananas are not trees, by definition. And, trees do not only yield fruit and nuts. By definition nuts are fruits. Trees yield sap (maple syrup), bark and leaves for medicine, and wood.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
1. Surprise! The world has more trees than you probably think | Berita Terbaru - Indonesia Breaking News - Berita Terbaru Bahasa Indonesia & Inggris |Berita Terbaru - Indonesia Breaking News - Berita Terbaru Bahasa Indonesia dan Inggris |Lowongan Kerja | 10.27.09
2. Cool Green Morning: Wednesday, October 28 | Cool Green Science: The Conservation Blog of The Nature Conservancy | 10.28.09
3. Twitter Trackbacks for Surprise! The world has more trees than you probably think | csmonitor.com [csmonitor.com] on Topsy.com | 10.28.09
Leave a Comment
We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. The comments feature is a forum to discuss the ideas in our stories. Constructive debate - even pointed disagreement - is welcome, but personal attacks on other commenters are not, and will not be published.
Tip: Do not write a novel. Keep it short. We will not publish lengthy comments. Come up with your own statements. This is not a place to cut and paste an email you received. If we recognize it as such, we won't post it.
Please do not post any comments that are commercial in nature or that violate copyrights.
Finally, we will not publish any comments that we regard as obscene, defamatory, or intended to incite violence.
1. Joe Tieger | 10.27.09
There may be more trees but it would be a mistake to confuse the number of trees with forests. Many forests have been cleared to create tree plantations for paper pulp, palm oil, construction timber etc. These monoculture plantations are not forests any more than a lawn is equal to a native grassland. Forests are ecological features with habitat for numerous species. Tree plantations are crops, not unlike a corn field, and provide limted habitat for few other species.