In 1991, I traveled through Tuscany in Italy. Many people claim it is beautiful, but I thought Tuscany was overrated: Its hills had too few trees, making them look vaguely bald rather than lush.
Now, Italy has more trees, making more areas in it beautiful. “Since 2020, and for the first time since the Middle Ages, forests have occupied a greater land area in Italy than farmland, with the former extending over more than a third of the national territory,” reports The Doomslayer.
L’Indipendente reports.
Today, Italy is, in all respects, a forestry nation. The wooded areas have in fact exceeded 100 thousand square kilometers of extension and occupy over a third of the national territory….The forest area has exceeded the agricultural one used: a situation that had not been recorded since the Middle Ages…The forest has become a central component of the Italian landscape, with a whole series of benefits that derive from the increasingly widespread presence of forest ecosystems.
Last year, China completed the Great Green Wall, a 46-year project to encircle its largest desert with trees. China did this to prevent desertification and curb the sandstorms that plague parts of China in springtime. The Great Green Wall is an 1800-mile “green belt” around the Taklamakan desert in China’s vast northwestern region of Xinjiang. The final 300 feet of trees in the green belt were recently planted on the desert’s southern edge.
“Since 1949, China’s forest cover has grown from 10 percent of its land area to 25 percent, partly thanks to government efforts to halt desertification. The reforestation has been so extensive that it has altered the country’s water cycle,” reports The Doomslayer.
The country of Uzbekistan in Central Asia is planting a forest of salt-resistant trees and plants in a desert to reduce toxic salt storms. The desert used to be the Aral Sea, a massive salt lake. It dried out when the Soviets diverted waters flowing into it, to irrigate endless cotton fields. The Soviets chose to grow only cotton in much of the region, rather than less thirsty crops that consume less water. An ecological catastrophe resulted.
Mangrove forests are recovering around the world.
Most of the world’s forests are expanding. The amount of vegetation on the Earth has increased for each of the last 30 years.
