On the 'Tree Wealth' of the World's Countries

Chris Mooney follows up on that "dramatic study" released earlier this month finding a total of 3 trillion trees living on the planet. "But much of the coverage missed what may have been the most fascinating new data of all," says Mooney, "provided in a supplement to their broader study."

"There, the scientists calculated comprehensive estimates of the numbers of trees in each country of the world, and how that relates to the country’s physical size, population size and more."

Mooney postis that this data allows a new understanding of each country's "tree wealth" or "tree resources"—given the many environmental and economic benefits of trees.

Mooney goes on to describe the findings of the total tree count ranking provided by the study, which benefits countries of massive size. Russia leads the rankings, followed by Canada, and the United States is fourth. Noting how land size skews these rankings, Mooney also examines the tree density metric. Finland is the country with the most trees per kilometer. Mooney also examines trees per person and trees per GDP.