6 Ways Trees Benefit All of Us
From a city park to a vast forest, trees deliver for us when we help them thrive. Here are 6 ways.
Cumberland Mountains
Mountain view of the Ataya tract and Cumberland Mountains from Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, Tennessee, United States.
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Byron Jorjorian
Land & Water Stories
How We Work With Forests
We use science to protect, better manage and restore forests to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, store carbon and benefit people and wildlife.
Forests are one of the most important ecoystems on Earth. They provide habitat to 80% of the world’s land-dwelling species. They help keep our water clean by naturally filtering out pollution. They provide sustenance, support jobs and offer refuge and recreation to billions of people around the planet. And they are one of our most critical natural pathways for absorbing and storing excess carbon to fight climate change. For millennia, trees have pulled carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and turned it into their bark, wood and leaves through the oldest carbon-capture technology on Earth: photosynthesis.
What are Natural Climate Solutions?
Natural climate solutions are actions to protect, better manage and restore nature to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and store carbon. Forests provide much of that carbon-storage opportunity. The latest estimates can be found at naturebase.org.
The Relationship Between Forests and Climate Change
Research about natural climate solutions shows that by avoiding deforestation, restoring forest ecosystems and better managing existing forests, we can contribute significantly to our climate goals.
The Nature Conservancy works with governments, corporations, Indigenous Peoples and thousands of partners around the world to protect, sustainably manage and restore our life-giving forests.
Quote: Ronnie Drever
It’s hard to overemphasize the importance of forests. Photosynthesis is the original carbon-capture technology. And, of course, forests also provide many other benefits for people and for nature.
Ronnie Drever
Forest Ecologist, Nature United
© Haroldo Palo Jr.
Protection
When we protect existing forests, we avoid and reduce deforestation that contributes to climate change and biodiversity loss.
Approximately 41 million trees are cut down every day—far faster than we are currently replanting them. The consequences of deforestation and other types of land degradation are severe, exacerbating climate change, biodiversity loss and declines in ecosystem services that hundreds of millions of people depend on.
In particular, the way we produce common commodities—like beef, soy and palm oil—leads to massive deforestation. This causes habitat and biodiversity loss and contributes about an eighth of global climate emissions, with enormous impacts on the many local and Indigenous communities who rely on these forests.
TNC’s decades of research, partnerships and on-the-ground projects have pointed us to a new path that gets to the root of the issue. By changing the underlying incentives and market models that promote agricultural expansion into existing forests, we can help producers transition to more sustainable practices at a large scale, ultimately eliminating deforestation from commodity production.
Ways We Address Deforestation
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Corporate Engagement
We engage directly with companies and industry groups on how and why to make smarter decisions in their sourcing, constructively challenging them to improve their monitoring, traceability and transparency to become fully deforestation-free. Learn more about how we work with companies.
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International Policy
We work to inform public policy in both key consumer countries like China and the UK, and in important producer and export countries in South America to change the structures that currently favor agricultural expansion over forest protection. Learn more about our global work.
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Innovative Finance
We have partnered with the UN Environment Programme and the Tropical Forest Alliance on an initiative called IFACC - Innovative Finance for the Amazon, Cerrado and Chaco—that helps financial institutions and companies structure and deploy over US$4 billion in commercial capital commitments for conversion-free beef and soy production. Learn more about our impact investing work.
© Bridget Besaw
Better Management
When we protect existing forests, we avoid and reduce deforestation that contributes to climate change and biodiversity loss.
TNC supports forest protection, restoration, and sustainable forest management practices, based on sound science and traditional knowledge. Many of the world’s natural forests provide wood and fiber products—like lumber, furniture and paper—critical to people’s lives and livelihoods. While some logging practices harm forests and the people that depend on them, improved and sustainable forest management makes it possible for nature, communities and economies to thrive.
What is Biomass?
Biomass is organic material that comes from plants and animals. It can come from waste or by-products (e.g. municipal waste, agricultural residue, sawdust, small-diameter timber cut to reduce wildfire risk) or dedicated sources (energy crops, timber). Biomass (directly or when processed into wood pellets) can be combusted to make electricity or turned into biofuels (e.g. ethanol, biodiesel, aviation fuel).
In many places protection is our primary strategy. But pushing for an end to all logging is impractical, unnecessary and ultimately ineffective. Improved and sustainable management practices allow forests to stay forests, while storing more carbon and maintaining wood and fiber production over the long term.
Wood can also be used for energy. Producing energy from woody biomass poses some risks. Demand for wood pellets, one form of wood used for energy production, can lead to degradation and loss of valuable healthy forests. In addition, the facilities that produce wood pellets can also impact air quality and cause disproportionate harm to Black, Brown and other overburdened communities.
We do not support timber harvest or bioenergy production that leads to environmental degradation, injustice, or otherwise harms communities. We believe the carbon impacts of forest products and bioenergy should be accurately calculated. We are against treating all bioenergy as carbon neutral or all forest products as climate solutions.
What do we mean by improved forest management?
Improved forest management refers to caring for a forest in a way that improves climate change resilience and reduces or removes carbon dioxide emissions. Here are some examples:
© Matt Kane/TNC
Climate-Smart Forestry
Climate-smart forestry practices are designed to improve forest health, maximize the potential for carbon sequestration and help fight climate change. These practices can include ecological thinning, or selectively cutting trees for the betterment of whole forest. For example, removing smaller diameter trees gives larger trees more room to grow and spacing out harvests across longer intervals of time allows older and larger trees to store more carbon.
In the U.S., the Working Woodlands program and the Family Forest Carbon Program leverage the power of privately owned forests by helping landowners improve the way forests on their properties are managed. In exchange, landowners are paid for the additional carbon their trees capture and store.
© Kiliii Yuyan
Fire Management
TNC has been working with fire in forests since 1962, when we conducted our first controlled burn. Our approach has evolved from primarily focusing on managing our preserves to a holistic model that includes equitable policy and funding, supporting Indigenous fire practitioners as they revitalize traditional fire cultures and elevate Indigenous leadership on fire, growing and diversifying the ranks of those who work with fire, and helping communities develop ways to live more safely with wildfire in forested areas and other landscapes.
In the United States, TNC helps lead the Fire Learning Network, Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network, Indigenous Peoples Burning Network, maps conditions through LANDFIRE, helps train new fire workers in TREX programs, and performs controlled burns across tens of thousands of acres each year.
In some forests we are combining ecological thinning with a safe reintroduction of fire to improve forest health and habitat.
© Christianah Oyenuga/TNC
Urban Forestry
Trees in urban neighborhoods improve air quality and mental health, lower air temperatures, decrease flooding, and provide habitat for wildlife. The Nature Conservancy is working around the United States to increase and improve tree cover and health for people and urban nature.
The Nature Conservancy is working with urban foresters, local organizations, and residents of many neighborhoods around the US to improve outcomes for residents and students in tree-related education and workforce development programs through tree planting and care. We know that mature shade trees provide the most benefits for our communities—so the Healthy Trees, Healthy Cities Initiative helps protect these most important urban trees from damage, disease, pests, and other threats. We partner with the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station and the University of Georgia, along with civic ecologists and conservation professionals, to monitor and maintain mature urban trees.
© Ruth Fremson / New York Times
Indigenous-led Stewardship
Many Indigenous communities around the world already manage forests in ways that draw from their traditions and values. In many cases, these practices sequester more carbon and result in improved economic outcomes for communites compared to other forestry practices.
For example, in Canada many communities are already taking different values into account, ranging from biodiversity to water resilience, and food security to local economies. Not only does this approach benefit local communities and provinces, but it benefits the whole of Canada and the wider world, contributing to the global fight against climate change.
© Debbie Miller, USDA Forest Service
Reducing Impacts of Pests & Pathogens
Every year, insects and diseases damage an average of 50+ million forest acres in the USA—and another 40 million acres in Canada—critically harming up to 15% of forest cover. While some of these forest insects and diseases are native to their ecosystems and their actions are part of the natural cycles of forested areas, others are non-native invasive species that damage and kill trees at uncontrolled and accelerated rates.
Implementing improved forest management practices—such as ecological thinning, prescribed fire, and the use of biological controls for the reduction of forest pest populations—can increase the resilience of forests to pests and pathogens. Other actions taken at a global scale, such as strengthening the international trade requirements for the prevention of invasive species hiding in cargo and packaging, serve to prevent new damaging pests from entering new forests.
© Jack Putz
Liana Cutting
Climate change and other human disturbances are causing woody vine infestations to intensify, especially in forests subject to selective logging. While lianas are fundamental components of most tropical and some temperate forest ecosystems, they decrease tree survival and growth rates, thereby decreasing timber yields in managed forests and reducing carbon storage wherever they are abundant. Dozens of previous experimental studies document that in response to liana removal, tree growth rates often double.
Research shows that strategic liana cutting, primarily in selectively logged forests, can substantially increase timber production and provide forest managers with access to voluntary carbon markets. By using science to guide the targeted reduction of lianas in selected areas, both biodiversity and carbon sequestration goals can be better met.
© Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal
Restoration
Planting trees is a tried-and-true way to fight climate change.
Reforestation—or the practice of restoring tree cover to an area that was once forested, either by planting trees or allowing trees to regrow—is a tried-and-true natural climate solution.
Research led by The Nature Conservancy has shown that in the United States, planting trees on frequently flooded lands, open urban spaces, degraded pastures and other formerly forested, under-utilized areas has the potential to capture up to 535 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide each year.
Quote: Susan Cook-Patton
Planting a tree, or simply letting seedlings grow in our own backyards, represents something we can do now to reignite our hope for a better future.
Susan Cook-Patton
Senior Forest Restoration Scientist
Reforestation Hub
Reforestation Hub is a web-based tool produced by TNC and American Forests.
Visit ReforestationHub.orgBut there is more to reforestation than planting millions of trees. We need the right trees and the right places. The Reforestation Hub, a free, online tool developed by TNC and American Forests, is a starting point for understanding this opportunity. Tools like this will help ensure reforestation is as effective as possible.
The Science of Restoring Forests
Tree planting is a promising natural solution to climate change and comes with enormous benefits beyond climate mitigation, such as biodiversity, habitat connectivity, improved community livelihoods, and improved freshwater and air quality. TNC and partners advance important science to help ensure efforts to restore forests are effective and equitable.
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Urban Tree Cover and Health
An ambitious, nationwide program of urban tree-planting could reduce health imbalances between neighborhoods and help communities adapt to a changing climate. See how trees can reduce heat-related health risks in cities.
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Breeding Pest Resistant Trees
A partnership of researchers is racing to save North America's iconic trees imperiled by invasive pests and pathogens. See how they're working to breed pest-resistant American beech, elm, Eastern hemlock, and three ash species.
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Accounting for Albedo
Provides a global analysis of where restoration of tree cover is most effective at cooling the global climate system—considering not just the cooling from carbon storage but also the warming from decreased albedo. See how albedo impacts tree planting.
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Tree Diversity
Planting forests with diverse species can help ensure their success. Learn why diversity matters in forests.
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Natural Forest Regrowth
Letting forests regrow naturally has the potential to absorb up to 8.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year through 2050, while still maintaining native grasslands and current levels of food production. Learn how forest regrowth can contribute to climate goals.
TNC works with governments, corporations, Indigenous Peoples and thousands of partners around the world to protect, restore and sustainably manage forests.
Examples of our work with forests around the world
Featured Initiatives
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- Edge of Appalachia
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Edge of Appalachia
North America
In Ohio, TNC is managing 14,000 acres of our Richard and Lucile Durrell Edge of Appalachia Preserve System for increased carbon sequestration.
- Emerald Edge
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Emerald Edge
North America
Along the edge of western North America, the Emerald Edge is one of the most diverse temperate forests on Earth.
- Maya Forest
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Maya Forest
Latin America
In Central America, we worked with a multi-sector coalition to protect some of the most biodiversity-rich forest in the world.
- Yun Ling Mountains
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Yun Ling Mountains
Asia Pacific
In China, we're engaged with the Yunnan Golden Monkey Protection Network, which aims to restore and reconnect the landscape for the endangered monkey and other species.
- Mantiqueira Mountains
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Mantiqueira Mountains
Latin America
In the Mantiqueira Mountains of Brazil, we're showing land owners how reforestation can be a lucrative business while also fighting climate change.
- Arizona Reforestation
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Arizona Reforestation
North America
We are restoring forests in Arizona and throughout the rest of the United States to be resilient to wildfires, climate change, and to enhance water quality.
- Cumberland Forest
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Cumberland Forest
North America
Safeguarding this vast stretch of forest tackles climate change on two fronts: storing millions of tons of carbon dioxide and connecting a migratory corridor for plants and animals.
- Adirondack Park
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Adirondack Park
North America
At 6 million acres, Adirondack Park is larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Olympic National Parks combined.
- Congo Basin
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Congo Basin
Africa
The Congo Basin—“the lungs of Africa”—is one of the largest carbon sinks on the planet. Here, TNC supports innovative forest protection and best practices for working forests, including selective logging that maintains harvests while also cutting carbon emissions by up to 50%. Forest managers apply these methods to keep more carbon in the forest and generate income from reduced emissions.
- East Kalimantan
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East Kalimantan
Asia Pacific
Since 2008, TNC’s partner in Indonesia, Yayasan Konservasi Alam Nusantara (YKAN), has helped to design and implement jurisdictional forestry programs.
- Canada's Boreal Forest
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Canada's Boreal Forest
North America
Stretching across northern Canada from the Yukon to Newfoundland and Labrador, the country’s boreal forest is the largest intact forest remaining on Earth.
- Indonesian Borneo
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Indonesian Borneo
Asia Pacific
As the world’s third-largest island, Borneo is home to nearly 29 million hectares of tropical forests and contains immense biodiversity. Together with our main Indonesian partner, Yayasan Konservasi Alam Nusantara, TNC is working to acquire long-term management rights to inactive timber areas to protect forests and wildlife, sequester carbon and support new economic opportunities.
How You Can Help
You play an important role in improving the health of forests, in your own neighborhood and across the globe. Here's how you can help.
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Plant a Billion Trees
Donate to help us plant and care for trees in critical forests around the world in Brazil, China, Colombia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mexico and the United States. Plant your tree now.
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Family Forest Carbon Program
Owners of small forests in the U.S. can leverage the carbon-storing power of their trees in the fight against climate change and earn revenue by enrolling in this program. Learn how to get your family forest involved.
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Don't Move Firewood
Moving firewood across long distances can potentially transport invasive species that cause damage to forests. You can make a difference by using local or heat-treated firewood whenever you need wood for your campsite, cabin or home heating. Learn how you can stop the spread of forest pests and pathogens.
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MWRD planters with tree seedlings at the Awe of Nature Festival, a partnership festival of The Nature Conservancy's Indian Boundary Prairies Preserve (IBP). the City of Markham and Cook County Forest Preserves (CCFP). The festival is hosted at Midlothian Meadows, a CCFP site.
©
Joshua Lott
Explore more
From the depths of soil to canopy heights, when forests are healthy, so are we. See how, with your help, we're conserving and restoring forests around the world.
