As a result of climate change, the US will plant 1 billion trees.

AP — BILLINGS, Mont. In an effort to mitigate the growing damage that wildfires, insects, and other manifestations of climate change are wreaking on the nation's forests, the Biden administration announced on Monday that the government will plant more than one billion trees across millions of acres of burned and dead woodlands in the U.S. West.

The government's capacity to plant new trees has been greatly overtaken in recent years by destructive fires that burnt too hot for forests to organically regenerate. According to officials, this has resulted in a backlog of 4.1 million acres (1.7 million hectares) that need to be replanted.

To clear the backlog and meet future demands, the U.S. Agriculture Department estimated that nurseries will need to produce four times as many tree seedlings. That comes after the Forest Service was urged by President Joe Biden in April to strengthen the nation's forests as the world becomes hotter, and after Congress passed bipartisan legislation last year instructing the agency to plant 1.2 billion trees over the next ten years.

The administration's larger plan to combat climate change is still largely in limbo due to opposition in Congress, where Democrats have a tenuous grasp on the majority. As a result, officials are now forced to take more modest steps, like the one announced on Monday, while the administration decides whether to declare a climate emergency, which may pave the way for more assertive executive branch moves.

https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-fires-forests-trees-plants-de0505c965c198a081a4b48084b0e903

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