The Logistics

How much land would need to be protected to fall into line with Project Drawdown’s plan?

Currently, there are about 650 million hectares of forest around the world under protection. Keep in mind that a hectare is roughly the size of two-and-a-half football fields. Multiplied by 650 million, and you find that over 1.6 billion football fields worth of forest are being protected today. This number seems like enough, considering that we as humans are unable to comprehend how many football fields that is. However, it becomes a little easier to understand when we look at the total number of hectares of forest in the world.

In 2021, there are about four billion hectares of forest on Earth. That means we are currently only protecting 0.16% of our forest — on the entire planet. The project drawdown scenario allots about 1150 million hectares to forest protection, in order to contribute as a climate solution. Still, this is a meager 0.28% of the total forest available.

The cost of this solution would materialize as a loss of potential farmland, resources such as wood, and potentially any services required to protect the forest. Fortunately, this solution is inexpensive for the most part. Because the forests in need of protecting are already grown and existing, there is no cost associated with building or collecting resources, as some other solutions may include. Even then, any costs for ecosystem services or carbon tax would be paid by the government or NGO, and not by landowners.