Thread by @herrfischer

Why do Jane Goodall or Marc Benioff think that the world needs a #TrillionTrees? It's a weird story about made up figures, an inspiring German, a flawed study, and a media frenzy. It all begins in 2013, with a boy’s speech in the UN assembly hall (1/15)

The boy in the video is Felix Finkbeiner. His accent is Bavarian. In his speech he proposes a "very simple 3 point plan" to save the future: Eliminate emissions, end poverty through climate justice, and plant trees. A trillion in ten years, he says (2/15)

At the time this #TrillionTree figure hardly had substance. There are different stories where it came from. The boy's father, Fritjhof Finkbeiner of the German @ClubOfRome, would later say to @sternde that they made it up on the plane to New York. Anyway, it stuck (3/15)

Felix became an icon with his "Plant for the Planet" movement. @NatGeo called him the "Teenager on Track to Plant a Trillion Trees", saying they had already "planted more than 14 billion trees" (that figure too had not much substance, but it stuck) (4/15) nationalgeographic.com/science/articl…

But then @FelixFinkbeiner met @TWCrowther, a young and aspiring scientist at Yale. Felix convinced him to tackle the questions of how many trees there are on earth (nobody else at Yale cared). Crowther calculated three trillion. @Nature published it. The paper was a hit (5/15)

So in 2017 Finkbeiner Sr and Crowther applied for a $1.2 Mio research grant at the German Ministry of Dev, saying that forest conservation and restoration "remain two of our most viable approaches for combating global climate change, biodiversity loss and rural poverty" (6/15)

Plant for the Planet would support Crowther with $110.000 and do the PR. So when the first paper came out, they organised a "Trillion Tree Declaration" that we need to plant at least a #TrillionTrees and signed it with, yes: the Prince of Monaco (7/15) blog.plant-for-the-planet.org/2018/together-…

Then, on the height of Fridays for Future 2019, Crowther published his blockbuster paper, saying that global tree restoration is "our most effective climate change solution". This time the @CrowtherLab even hired a PR firm to promote it. It worked (8/15)

Greta Thunberg and the @guardian made a viral video about trees, the "magic machine" agains climate change. Another Trillion Tree campaign @1t_org was launched by the WEF @Davos. Even Donald Trump liked the idea. @treesforjane joined in now (9/15)

But the reaction from the scientific community was devastating. Serious flaws in the paper were pointed out. The conclusion was called »simply incorrect scientifically and dangerously misleading« (also in @ScienceMagazine) and had to be retracted. (10/15)

For Plant for the Planet, things it got even worse. My colleague @hannahknuth and I, with help from @Nefelibata4ever, investigated Plant for the Planet’s project in Mexico, where they wanted to show that tree planting is easy and can be done for just 1€/tree (11/15)

What we uncovered was disastrous. Reported survival rates and CO2 compensations were unsubstantiated. The main project area was flooded after hurricanes, countless trees died. Land acquisitions by Plant for the Planet made no sense to experts (12/15) zeit.de/2020/53/plant-…

A novel study by @ForrestFleisch1 + @ProfEricColeman looked at the success of large scale tree planting in India. It’s effect: almost zero. Why? To fulfill big quotas trees were planted in existing forests, at places where trees do not survive etc (13/15)

But what made the case of Plant for the Planet even worse were lots of unanswered questions raised by @reddmonitor, about land buys, about community involvement. A lot of companies put their support on hold in the aftermath of our reporting (14/15) redd-monitor.org/2021/02/16/som…

I am telling this because tree planting is hard and often fails; and it can lead to land rights issues in the Global South, hardly ever addressed by #TrillionTree proponents. Trees have lots of benefits, but the contrast btw flashy campaigns and the reality can be stark. (15/15)

Let me add the following tweet to this thread, in case you think that tree planting is a complete waste of time. It is not: