While it is virtually impossible to know how many trees are in the world, satellite imaging has helped procure a rough estimate. A study in the journal of ‘Nature’ reported close to 3.04 Trillion trees on earth. And though this might seem like a lot- it’s not! 3.04 Trillion trees make for almost 422 trees per person. But did you know that a lot of trees are just all in the same place? Depending on where you’re from, how many trees there are in the world for you will be a lot less, maybe even more, than 442 trees.
Before the advent of man, the earth hosted a whopping 6 Trillion trees-double the current number of trees in the world. Historians estimate that the forest spread must have been around 6 billion hectares of land. Still, now the planet only has a fraction of the trees it used to, thanks to intensive agricultural practices and modern civilization infrastructure. Unfortunately, we continue to lose trees at the rate of approximately 10 billion trees a year.
The 1920s saw exponential growth in the timber industry due to many constructions and recreational sectors’ developments. Interestingly, the number of trees in the world has grown by 400%, and we now have a lot more trees than we did 100 years before.
There might be 3.04 Trillion trees in the world, but their distribution is the real problem. 50% of all the trees in the world are present in the five biggest countries, while two-thirds of all trees are in just ten countries. Leaving just 1990 Billion trees for the rest of the world! It doesn’t seem like an awful lot anymore.
Credit : Local Tree Estimates
Picture Credit : Google
