Can trees save the planet? | DW Documentary
Planting more trees is often seen as a simple solution to problems like climate change and species loss. But how effective is this practice really?
Deforestation is increasing, and CO2 emissions are reaching record levels. In the fight against environmental catastrophe, planting trees is often presented as a silver bullet. Politicians, NGOs, and multinational corporations are turning to this simple and affordable solution.
But could excessive tree planting actually exacerbate the ecological imbalance we are trying to combat? This documentary examines the real-life impacts of global tree-planting campaigns, featuring interviews with researchers in France, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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Video “Can trees save the planet? | DW Documentary” was uploaded on 09/02/2026 by DW Documentary Youtube channel.
































Everything was great till you showed dRUMPF.
Ahhh. New. And it starts with birdsong and green views. Bring me a cuppa tea.
it's not a solution for climate change by itself, because you still have to lock the carbon in the soil and make sure it doesn't return. However it's still a good thing through planting the right trees/plants in the right place. Very good documentary overall well done dw! You haven't mentioned how a forest can be the backbone of an economy, because you get all your needs from the right forest.
Miyawaki style plantations may be more effective!
This is insanely stupid all efforts should be put towards stopping fossil fuel emissions. We're digging up countless billions of tons of concentrated fossilized plant life. There is no hope for any method of sequestering that much carbon and double that in the amount of oxygen that goes with it.
Terrible one-sided documentary for the most part.
1. Agroforestry, especially in many of those areas that are now used to grow crops, is way more efficient because it's a perennial crop and in many cases will capture many times more carbon. The real solution is to change people's diets so that people are not dependent on animal agriculture to the degree that they are now because it's very wasteful in terms of land management. This has been known for thousands of years. It's even in Plato's Dialogues.
2. It's clear there is almost a religious agenda behind the fact that one should not be able to buy trees in order to offset CO2 emissions, which is incredibly stupid. It's entirely possible and feasible for a company like Air France to finance a project where the trees are there permanently until they die naturally. This documentary facetiously makes it seem as if that's an impossibility.
There are too many logical fallacies to mention and all a programme of this nature does is just alienate people from the reality. Yes one can create an argument that is too simple: that everywhere one should just plant huge monocultures of eucalyptus trees. That's a straw man. Knocking that argument down, everybody can agree that that's a bad idea and if that's done that's because of corruption and distortions of the goal.
This documentary is just simply disingenuous. It's a false equivalency. It's entirely possible to finance enormous projects where the trees are not cut down and where there is a natural diversity. It's entirely possible to move our own agriculture away from animal agriculture towards agroforestry, which is incredibly efficient. It is wishful thinking to imagine that people tomorrow will stop using all materials that release co2 or it's equivalents. Planting forests is a very good idea, with biodiversity in mind. This is not in any way mutually exclusive. This is not in any way mutually exclusive. I found it very interesting that the British scientists with the earrings only mentioned industries connected with energy and transportation but did not mention the fact that an enormous amount of viable land is taken for animal agriculture which is incredibly inefficient and indirectly vastly limits the amount of natural forests and agroforestry projects that would otherwise be possible. He is deliberately following some kind of political programme rather than the reality of the problem.
Infact, most of the restoration initiatives in the global soil fails because of the strong financial motives behind them. Politicians, foreign experts, NGOs and private companies are chefly driven by one motive 'what do I benefit'. So carbon offsetting remains a proxy in the process
I mean hope is all nice and so, but we need to stop emitting first, and thats not gonna happen.
Reforestation alone is not enough, but it's a great start.
95% of all speecies on this planet have gone extinct without our help. So to quote the greatest cinic of our generation: the planet its fine, the people are farcked
bravo❤
Biodiversity is extremely important to sustain this world. Many global leaders do not appreciate this enough.
Tree cannot save human from becoming dum scrolling monkeys
Answer: no, because lifestyle.
Also question: why does China not bother much about CO2?
Answer: because they ALREADY have a communist government.
like if you will plant a tree in 3 years to come
we must take care of this planet. Then whatever comes after. 🌐
'They capture and store a large part of our co2 emissions'.
Hold on. Thats not really true, Deutsche Welle. Thats really not true at all actually. And you know it. You guys are not stupid or ignorant. You know this is a lie.
Why do you lie about this? Do you – lemme guess- have a second agenda? A hidden agenda? Something you dont want to say out loud so you lie about it? Dear govt sponsored broadcasting service?
I love this channel, great documentaries! Wish my algorithm would push this more
It is too late. Nothing can save it now
Rich countries producing more co2. And asking third world countries to plant trees
What we need is drones reforesting billions of trees, while people on the ground make sure the ground can hold water.
1st Comment and Like! Thanks DW for the cool documentaries 😊