Reforestation
Reforestation is the re-establishment of forest through planting or deliberate seeding on land classified as forest. Under Food and Agriculture Organization forest reporting, it implies no land-use change and includes planting or seeding in temporarily unstocked forest areas. It excludes natural forest regeneration and establishing forest on land previously under another use.
In simple terms
Reforestation is a land-management activity within an existing forest land-use category. The intervention can plant seedlings or deliberately sow seed after harvesting or disturbance; natural regeneration is tracked separately in FAO reporting. Unlike afforestation, reforestation does not convert previously non-forest land to forest. A planted area may still differ from the previous forest in species, structure, carbon stocks, and biodiversity, so hectares treated do not by themselves demonstrate ecological recovery. Reports should identify the forest definition, intervention, time horizon, and treatment of plantations.
Why it matters
Reforestation can restore tree cover, carbon storage, watershed functions, habitat, and forest livelihoods when species and management fit the site, but it does not substitute for preventing deforestation. Outcomes vary greatly: a diverse native forest and a short-rotation monoculture are not ecologically equivalent. Clear terminology makes forest-change statistics and restoration claims easier to interpret.
Example
After a wildfire, managers plant native seedlings and deliberately sow seed on land that remains classified as forest. This is reforestation under FAO reporting. Separate monitoring can record naturally regenerated areas, survival, structure, and ecosystem recovery; planting counts alone do not show that forest condition or biodiversity has returned.
How it differs
Afforestation
Reforestation restores tree cover on land that remains forest; afforestation establishes forest through a long-term change from a previous non-forest land use.