burned Boreal forest

Tree-planting programs can do more harm than good

Conventional wisdom holds that all tree planting is good for fighting climate change and supporting wildlife, but research shows some techniques can be a problem.

A charred swath of boreal forest can be seen along highway 63 near Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, in May 2016, after a devastating wildfire.

Photograph by Ian Willms
This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and the National Geographic Society.

Imagine a black hole in the center of a green donut, Malcolm North said.

A USDA forest ecologist in the Sierra Nevada of eastern California, North was at the center of a new experiment in forestry with global implications. In September 2014, the King Fire ripped through 150 square miles (390 square kilometer) of the Eldorado National Forest. North was part of a team of scientists studying new ways to bring the forest back.

That put him at the center of one of the hottest new fields of climate adaptation—and a quiet revolution in his own field. Throughout the 20th Century, the Forest Service grew trees by, well, planting them. “We’d go out to a big fire or clear cut,”

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