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Planting carbon storage

Nature Climate Change volume 8, pages 556–558 (2018)Cite this article

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A global effort is underway to restore more than 350 million hectares of deforested and degraded land by bringing together reforestation commitments under the Bonn Challenge. Molly Hawes investigates the benefits and complexities of returning land to forest.

Using trees to draw down and store atmospheric carbon is an increasingly popular tactic for those tasked with mitigating climate change. One such planting project is underway at Smithills Estate, near Bolton, in the United Kingdom. This spring, 400 volunteers planted 5,500 trees for the Woodland Trust on the 1,700-acre site in 10 days. As reforestation efforts from around the world start to stack up, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is launching a tool this year to highlight and quantify progress.

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Fig. 1: Bonn Challenge pledges from 2011 to May 2018.

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  1. Freelance science writer and Nature sub-editor, London, UK

    Molly Hawes

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  1. Molly Hawes
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Correspondence to Molly Hawes.

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Hawes, M. Planting carbon storage. Nature Clim Change 8, 556–558 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0214-x

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