Matthew C. Hansen

Built World

Professor and principal investigator at GLAD Lab

For decades, the dominant narrative held that global forest cover was declining. A 2018 study in Nature upended that assumption: satellite data from 1982 to 2016 showed the world's tree canopy grew by 2.24 million square kilometers—an area larger than Mexico. The net gain of 7.1% came despite ongoing tropical deforestation, with expansion in Russia, China, Europe, and the United States more than offsetting losses in the Amazon, Congo, and Southeast Asia.

Updated May 22