Earlier estimates pegged the number of trees in the entire world at 400 billion. However, a recent study showed that there are, in fact, over 3 trillion trees on the planet—nearly 10 times larger than the previous estimate.
The study, published on Sept. 2 in the journal Nature, indicated that there are 422 trees for every person on Earth.
The comprehensive research also placed about half of the trees on Earth in tropical and subtropical forests. Some 740 billion of these trees are found in boreal forests, mostly in Russia and Canada. The remaining 610 billion trees are located in temperate areas.
Although the study showed a higher number of trees compared to earlier estimates, this is still not a good enough reason to celebrate. The same research showed that the rate of deforestation is still alarming, with 15.3 billion trees being lost each year.
Of this number, only 5 billion trees can be replenished, placing the net loss at 10 billion trees every year.
"The negative relationships between tree density and anthropogenic land use exemplify how humans contend directly with natural forest ecosystems for space," the paper stated.
The same study also showed that humans have already reduced the number of trees on Earth by a staggering 46 percent since the advent of civilisation.
"We can now say that there's less trees than at any point in human civilisation. Since the spread of human influence, we've reduced the number almost by half, which is an astronomical thing," lead researcher Thomas Crowthe from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental explained.
How exactly did the researchers reach this tree count? The scientists painstakingly merged together satellite observations, which gives an overall view of forests, and ground-based ecological work, which explores trees under the canopy which cannot be captured by the satellites.
