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  • NEWS FEATURE

How to plant a trillion trees

As projects to restore woodlands accelerate, researchers are looking for ways to avoid repeating past failures.
  1. Rachel Cernansky

    1. Rachel Cernansky is a science journalist based in Denver, Colorado.

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A man waters seedlings in a Brazilian nursery.

A Brazilian nursery grows seedlings to support reforestation efforts. Credit: Mint Images/Aurora

When the Philippines opened its first school of forestry in 1910, the institute’s leaders hatched a plan to restore degraded woodlands surrounding the campus outside Manila. They planted dozens of tree varieties, both native and exotic. In 1913, the school received 1,012 mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) seeds from a botanical garden in Calcutta, India, and started growing them around the grounds. The American hardwood became such a staple of reforestation efforts in the country that it spread throughout natural areas, so much so that it eventually proved a nuisance. The trees create veritable green deserts: their tannin-rich leaves are unpalatable to local animals and seem to stifle the growth of other plants where they fall. They also produce seeds annually, giving them an advantage over native hardwoods, which do so at intervals of five years or more.

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Nature 560, 542-544 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-06031-x

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