In Russia, the trees at all enough (Video) – RSUTE

Russia ranks first among all countries of the planet Earth in the number of trees. In our country there are about 640 billion, say environmentalists from Yale University. This was reported by RIA Novosti.

In Russia, the trees almost two times more than in Canada, which ranks second on this indicator. In third place, Brazil – where environmentalists have counted about 300 billion trees. The top ten also hit the US, China, Congo, Indonesia, Australia, Bolivia, and Mexico.

The researchers set about counting trees on Earth. For this measure have been made more than 400 thousand sites on all continents. According to the study it turned out an imposing figure – more than three trillion trees. And this figure is seven times higher than experts previously thought. Prior to this study was performed based on the satellite imagery. However, this method sets the area where the forests grow, but did not say anything about the density. This is what led to the error.

The report notes that in the year in the world due to human activity killed at least 15 billion trees. One of the report’s lead author Thomas Crowther noted that since the beginning of civilization, mankind has destroyed about 3 trillion trees – a little less than their current numbers.

«Trees store a huge amount of carbon, they are critical to maintaining the cycle of nutrients in Nature, provide us with clean water and air, as well as countless other things. But when you ask someone to assess, at least up to order, how many trees there are in the world, almost all of us were undecided. I myself was surprised that we’re talking about the number of the order of trillions “, – said Thomas Crowther (Thomas Crowther) from Yale University (USA).

The study showed that from the time when humanity start agricultural activities (about 12 thousand years ago), the number of trees in the world decreased by 46 percent. Every year they become less than 15 billion. Even in places with warm humid climate favors the growth of trees, forests may not be the fault of the person.

Also, the anthropogenic factor was decisive in reducing the density of the forest, said Crowther. “Of course, we have assumed that human activities will play an important role, but I did not expect that it will be a decisive factor in determining the density of tree growth,” – said the scientist.

The idea to count all the trees on the planet appeared at Crowther and his colleagues after they were approached by representatives of the initiative Plant for the Planet, in which students – with the support of the United Nations – are trying to stop global warming by planting trees.

The activists wanted to know how much they were able to the number of trees to replenish the earth, and scientists decided to help them find the answer to this question. For this group Crowther joined the results of calculations carried out in over 500 thousand corners of the Earth, as well as a large number of satellite images of forests.

«The scale of human impact amazing. Of course, we have assumed that human activities will play an important role, but I did not expect that it will be a decisive factor in determining the density of tree growth “, – said Crowther.

According to the report, in terms of the density of the forest, most prosperous regions are North America, Scandinavia and Russia.