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Forests

Planted forests

Where the 2015 forest-management map marks planted forest and short-rotation timber plantation, with the reported total of about 312 million hectares.

Lesiv 2015 · planted share · FRA ~312 Mha

Planted forests
Map: Fix Planet from Lesiv and co-authors, global forest management, 2015, 100 m classes. Colour is the share of each 0.02° cell classed as planted forest (rotation longer than 15 years) or short-rotation timber plantation. Oil palm is a separate class and stays outside this share. CC BY 4.0. Boundaries: Natural Earth.

What it is

The plate is the Lesiv and colleagues (2022) global forest-management raster for 2015, 100 metre classes, counted as the share of each 0.02 degree cell in planted forest (rotation longer than 15 years) or short-rotation timber plantation. Oil palm is a separate class in that raster and stays off this plate. The 2025 forest assessment still reports planted forests at about 312 million hectares, roughly 8 percent of total forest area. That hectare total is a national land-use statistic. The colour on this plate is the 2015 map share.

Why it matters

Planted area can rise while primary forest falls. A planted stand and an old naturally regenerating forest are different ecosystems.

How to read it

Colour is the share of the cell in those two planted classes. Empty land falls outside those classes. The pattern is for 2015. The oil-palm class stays out of the forest-area total unless the definitions are checked first.

Sources

Open the source