With the world having lost almost half of its original forest cover, largely due to population growth and agricultural expansion, there are still vast areas of underutilized and unproductive land that could be restored through tree planting to provide valuable ecosystem services.

Katie Reytar from the World Resources Institute (WRI) writes in The Ecologist that there are 2 billion hectares of land around the world “crying out to have their tree cover restored”, many of them in unlikely places.

Restoration of these areas could help to provide clean water, improved soil fertility and income from tree products.

Such restoration doesn’t just involve planting trees but also improving the productivity of deforested or degraded landscapes, such as through agroforestry. In the article, 3 forms of restoration are identified: wide-scale to restore dense forests; mosaic restoration to integrate trees into landscapes; and remote restoration.

Drawing on information from WRI’s recently updated Atlas of Forest Landscape Restoration Opportunities, Reytar outlines reforestation opportunities in 7 key countries: Angola, India, Uruguay, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ireland, Cambodia and the USA.

Read the full story: Want to restore the world's forests? Begin with these 'surprising seven' countries