For years, researchers have produced accurate techniques to track where people are damaging, protecting and restoring the world’s 1.03 billion hectares of primary tropical forests, which are vital tools to store carbon and protect biodiversity. But current monitoring systems fall short: They simply aren’t detecting trees outside of these closed-canopy forests.

Fortunately, a solution is here. Preliminary tree cover data developed by WRI shows where billions of these trees — previously invisible to governments, investors and the public — are growing across 1.4 billion hectares of Africa and Latin America.