In recent years, scientists have increasingly highlighted the key role that reforestation can play in fighting climate change. This has given rise to numerous initiatives around the world that have made it their goal to reduce CO2 emissions in the atmosphere by planting trees. Among these is the World Economic Forum’s One Trillion Trees Initiative that, as its name implies, aims to plant one trillion trees by 2030.
In concert with this initiative, the South Korea Forest Service (KFS) has announced its plans to plant three billion trees in the next three decades. Through the program, the Korean government plans to invest around $5.3 billion to restore forests, which it says could help slash around 34 million tons of CO2 emissions. This is part of the country’s larger plan to attain net-zero emissions by 2050. In 2016, the country ranked 11th in greenhouse gas emissions.
According to KFS, some of the efforts will involve cutting trees that are older than 30 years and replacing them with new ones, following the reasoning that older trees have a smaller capacity to sequester carbon than younger ones.
Overall, the future forests will cover around 2.34 million hectares (6 million acres).
