Fesenmyer Kurt A, Poor Erin E, Terasaki Hart Drew E, Veldman Joseph W, Fleischman Forrest, Choksi Pooja, Archibald Sally, Armani Mohammed, Fagan Matthew E, Fricke Evan C, Terrer César, Hasler Natalia, Williams Christopher A, Ellis Peter W, Cook-Patton Susan C
Tackle Climate Change, The Nature Conservancy, Boise, ID, USA.
Tackle Climate Change, The Nature Conservancy, Denver, CO, USA.
Nat Commun. 2025 Jun 11;16(1):4572. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-59799-8.
Reforestation is a prominent climate change mitigation strategy, but available global maps of reforestation potential are widely criticized and highly variable, which limits their ability to provide robust estimates of both the locations and total area of opportunity. Here we develop global maps that address common critiques, build on a review of 89 reforestation maps created at multiple scales, and present eight reforestation scenarios with varying objectives, including providing ecosystem services, minimizing social conflicts, and delivering government policies. Across scenarios, we find up to 195 Mha (million hectares) are available (2225 TgCOe (teragrams of carbon dioxide equivalent) per year total net mitigation potential), which is 71-92% smaller than previous estimates because of conservative modeling choices, incorporation of safeguards, and use of recent, high-resolution datasets. This area drops as low as 6 Mha (53 TgCOe per year total net mitigation potential) if only statutorily protected areas are targeted. Few locations simultaneously achieve multiple objectives, suggesting that a mix of lands and restoration motivations will be needed to capitalize on the many potential benefits of reforestation.
重新造林是一项重要的气候变化缓解策略，但现有的全球重新造林潜力地图受到广泛批评且差异很大，这限制了它们对机会地点和总面积进行可靠估计的能力。在此，我们绘制了全球地图，回应了常见批评，基于对89份多尺度重新造林地图的审查，并提出了八个具有不同目标的重新造林方案，包括提供生态系统服务、尽量减少社会冲突以及落实政府政策。在所有方案中，我们发现有多达1.95亿公顷（195 Mha）的土地可用（每年总净缓解潜力为2225太克二氧化碳当量（TgCOe）），由于采用了保守的建模选择、纳入了保障措施以及使用了最新的高分辨率数据集，这一面积比之前的估计小71%-92%。如果仅以法定保护区为目标，这一面积将降至600万公顷（6 Mha）（每年总净缓解潜力为53 TgCOe）。很少有地点能同时实现多个目标，这表明需要多种土地类型和恢复动机的组合，才能利用重新造林的诸多潜在益处。
