Bastin et al (Reports, 12 May 2017, p. 635) claim to have discovered 467 million hectares of new dryland forest. We would argue that these additional areas are not completely "new" and that some have been reported before. A second shortcoming is that not all sources of uncertainty are considered; the uncertainty could be much higher than the reported value of 3.5%.

[1] Land-cover changes in China are being powered by demand for food for its growing population and by the nation’s transition from a largely rural society to one in which more than half of its people are expected to live in cities within two decades. Here we use an analysis of remotely sensed data gathered between 1990 and 2000, to map the magnitude and pattern of changes such as the conversio...

insurance industry is one of the effective factors of developing sustainable agriculture. natural resources that are more pone to influence than other phenomenon such as: drought, there are limited areas under insurance. from 86.4 million hectares of country ranges, there are nearly 3 million hectares under insurance. semnan province are compared to other areas has more range insured. therefore...

Oil is the most widely distributed source of energy in the world and the largest-scaled environmental pollutant. Oil, oil products, and oil-containing industrial wastes pollution is ranked second place after radioactive pollution on account of their harmful action to ecosystems (Chernyakhovsky et al., 2004). Oil deposits in Russia are mainly located in the northern regions of the European part ...

Cocoa occupies 6 million hectares in humid coastal West Africa where 70% of the world supply is grown, 90% of which is produced on 2 million family farms of 2 hectares or less. Here, at least 16 million people depend on cocoa but earn only $100/person/year from the crop. There is need to optimize the farming system, minimize the environmental impact of technologies, and improve socio-economic d...

Urban agriculture is recently being recognized as a distinctive urban land use contributing to greenspaces and food security. The land inventory forms the critical first step in identifying sites for urban agriculture. The authors’ analysis greatly expands on prior land inventory strategies, first analyzing land cover to identify all open areas available for siting urban agriculture. Then in GI...

The valley of the Peene River is located in the northeast of Germany in eastern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The whole area includes about 35.000 hectares. Out of these 20.000 hectares are nature protection areas. The Peene is one of the last unspoilt rivers in Germany and one of the biggest linked fens in Europe. It is held as very precious and from all river valley fens as best preserved. In this ...