The Race for a Twelfth Tree

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The third trillion tree effort, Plant for the Planet, used to display what looked like a grand total on its website. Some time in the last year or so, the graph was removed. Felix Finkbiner says that his organization is no longer focused on counting trees. Ultimately, he believes success or failure will be judged not by the number of trees planted, but via satellite imagery viewed over the long term.

In the past decade, planting trees has come to represent many things: a virtuous act, a practical solution and a symbol of hope in the face of climate change. But can planting a trillion trees really save the world?

Visiting the Eden Reforestation Projects in Goiás, Brazil, and interviewing numerous international scientists and activists, the journalist Zach St. George offers a vivid insight into the root of the tree-planting movement — from the Green Belt Movement of the 1970s to the Trillion Tree Campaign of the 2010s — and considers the concept’s environmental potential, as well as the movement’s shortcomings.

This story was written by Zach St. George and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.