In a study released in Nature on Wednesday, September 30th, a team of researchers has further refined the number of trees via estimates of tree density. The new estimates indicate that there are approximately 3.04 trillion trees, blowing away the previously estimate of 400 billion. That means, the researchers say, that there are 422 trees for every person on Earth. However, these estimates vary widely by country and the some of the lease dense countries have the the highest density of trees.
In the table below, taken from their supplementary appendix, the top 20 countries by the number of total trees is listed. As can be seen, there are a few countries with a large land area and a correspondingly large number of trees. At the top of these are Russia, Canada, Brazil, United States and the DRC. What is interesting to me is the disproportionate effort spent on protecting trees in only some of these countries (Brazil & Congo), and only to a lesser extent in the others. A lot of this probably has to do with post-colonial mentalities, where we focus on “doing good” elsewhere rather than in our own backyard. However, a lot is probably also the influence of industry and poor government policy.
| Country | Pop (2014) | Area (Km2) | Total Trees | |
| Russia | 143,819,569 | 16,869,700 | 641,607,335,936 | |
| Canada | 35,540,419 | 9,926,220 | 318,180,524,032 | |
| Brazil | 202,033,670 | 8,551,890 | 301,781,614,592 | |
| United States | 318,857,056 | 9,477,790 | 228,293,902,336 | |
| China | 1,364,270,000 | 9,401,500 | 139,636,736,000 | |
| Democratic Republic of the Congo | 69,360,118 | 2,343,630 | 101,316,296,704 | |
| Indonesia | 252,812,245 | 1,902,280 | 80,665,804,800 | |
| Australia | 23,490,736 | 7,716,880 | 76,714,500,096 | |
| Bolivia | 10,847,664 | 1,089,460 | 59,277,484,032 | |
| Mexico | 123,799,215 | 1,960,790 | 56,782,200,832 | |
| Colombia | 48,929,706 | 1,144,040 | 51,425,353,728 | |
| Argentina | 41,803,125 | 2,786,540 | 50,239,651,840 | |
| Angola | 22,137,261 | 1,255,280 | 42,050,605,056 | |
| Peru | 30,769,077 | 1,300,800 | 46,197,633,024 | |
| Sweden | 9,689,555 | 448,346 | 31,008,122,880 | |
| Venezuela | 30,851,343 | 918,431 | 36,278,259,712 | |
| India | 1,267,401,849 | 3,166,980 | 35,181,322,240 | |
| Finland | 5,463,596 | 335,544 | 24,375,093,248 | |
| Zambia | 15,021,002 | 755,807 | 27,612,139,520 | |
| South Sudan | 11,738,718 | 635,892 | 27,408,459,776 |
Given the strong relationship between the environment and human health, this should not only be an economic, biodiversity, use, or environmentalist agenda, but also a public health one. The advantage of a public health agenda is that it includes all of the other mentioned priorities. Public health from an ecosocial lens can include the right to employment (including in the resource sector) as well as healthy environment. Ecological determinants of health include access to nature and green space, it includes clean air and climate change, and it includes clean water and sanitation. As such, the protection of the Boreal forests is as much part of the discussion for city dwellers as for the traditional inhabitants of our lands.
In advanced industrial nations like ours, the protection of the environment and forests in particular should be a national priority. The effects of adequate protection (and growth!) of our forests could be massive and go far beyond the economic effects. Direct benefits include reduction in ozone depletion, mediation of global particulate matter, protection of biodiversity, and cleaner water sources.
From the above table, the developed nations on the list should take stock as to how they are protecting and growing their own forests. Is Canada doing enough? Is there a national strategy for forest protection and growth? Is there a national biodiversity strategy? Is the public health field sufficiently involved in the discussion? I don’t think the answer is yes to any of these questions, but it should be.