China spent decades planting 66 billion trees; scientists found they now outgrow natural forests by 66%

If you've ever planted a tree on Earth Day and wondered if it actually does anything, China has an answer that might surprise you. China's Three-North Shelterbelt Program, launched in 1978 to hold back the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts, has resulted in some 66 billion trees planted to date, according to Live Science's coverage of the research. According to a new 2026 study published in Geophysical Research Letters, these human-planted forests are now growing faster than the forests nature made on its own.

The researchers used satellite records of leaf area index, a canopy-density proxy linked to carbon uptake, and found that planted forests expanded their leaf area 66% faster than natural forests. Even after adjusting for age and growing conditions, the planted stands still outpaced natural ones by 4.6%, with the strongest gains in mixed and evergreen forests.

If you care about climate change, but wonder if large-scale tree planting makes any difference, this is the kind of hard data that says it does.


What the scientists actually found
The study was led by landscape ecologist Yuhang Luo at Peking University’s Shenzhen campus. Luo and his team set out to see if planted forests and natural forests respond differently to rising carbon dioxide and a warming climate. In a study in Geophysical Research Letters, Luo and colleagues used satellite data to track something called the leaf area index, essentially a measure of how thick and leafy a forest’s canopy is. A thicker canopy can indicate more photosynthesis and greater carbon uptake, though it is only an indirect measure.

The results were astounding. Plantation forests increased their leaf area 66 percent more rapidly than natural forests. Much of that gap is down to age because planted forests tend to be younger, and younger trees grow faster. But even after the researchers adjusted for age and growth conditions, the planted forests still grew faster than the natural ones, by about 4.6 percent, with the difference even more pronounced in mixed and evergreen forests, the same research found. Scientists believe this is partly because planted forests are actively managed. People clear competing weeds, add fertilizer in some cases, and prefer fast-growing species such as poplar and eucalyptus, all of which allow the trees to respond more strongly to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The catch millennials should know about
Before you celebrate too hard, there's an important asterisk here. The growth advantage of planted forests is greatest at 30 and 40 years of age and then declines rapidly. Natural forests grow more slowly but continue to grow steadily for centuries, which is important for long-term carbon storage. In comments accompanying the study, Luo put it simply: planted forests are a powerful short-term tool for carbon uptake, but natural forests are irreplaceable for lasting climate resilience.

Independent experts agree with that caution. What about this study? Live Science reports that Kevin Dsouza, a University of Waterloo postdoctoral researcher who was not involved in the study, said carbon is stored not just in leaves but also in wood, bark, roots, and soil, so leaf area alone does not tell the whole story. He cited earlier studies that show natural forests are capable of sequestering more aboveground carbon than planted forests in their initial years.

The caution is backed by another China forest study in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, which mapped young planted and naturally regenerated forests using remote sensing and field data. It found that during the first 30 years of recovery, natural forests generally had higher aboveground carbon accumulation rates, and that the difference was driven mainly by tree density; the authors also projected that by 2060, young planted forests would hold less aboveground carbon overall.

That claim checks out. A 2025 study in Communications Earth & Environment led by K. Cheng found that China’s naturally regenerated forests currently accumulate aboveground carbon faster than newly planted forests, likely because of tree-density differences, even though planted forests store more total carbon simply because they cover more land.

Why this matters beyond China
It’s not just a China story. It’s relevant to how the US, and the rest of the world, think about tackling climate change, especially as tree-planting pledges have become a go-to talking point for corporations and governments alike. NASA's Earth Observatory analyzed satellite data from 2000 to 2017 and found that China and India together account for about a third of the planet’s overall greenery increase, even though they hold only 9 percent of the world’s vegetated land. The report noted that about 42 percent of China's contribution to that greening is directly from its forest conservation and expansion programs.

For young Americans reading headlines about corporate “net zero” pledges and wondering if planting trees is just greenwashing, this research provides a more honest picture. Reforestation can remove carbon dioxide from the air relatively quickly in some settings. But it’s not a silver bullet, and it’s not a substitute for cutting emissions in the first place. As Luo said, the success of reforestation is not just about planting more trees. Where you plant them matters, what species you select matters, and what you do with them for the next few decades matters.

China plans to plant another 34 billion trees by the middle of this century. And that’s what scientists like Luo, Dsouza, and Cheng are now racing to find out: whether that translates into meaningful long-term carbon storage, or just an impressive short-term green blip.