An international team of scientists uncovered 1,803,097 square miles (467 million hectares) of previously unreported forest populating Earth’s dryland biomes, boosting forest cover globally by at least 9 percent, according to a study published last week (May 11) in the journal Science. This update estimates that forest cover in drylands is 40-47 percent higher than what has previously been found.

Jean-François Bastin, first author on the study and an ecologist with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, told Mongabay that he and his colleagues were “surprised and stunned” at their new estimates.

In their report, the researchers demonstrated that in 2015, out of the estimated 23.67 million square miles (6,132 million hectares) of total dryland covering the earth’s surface, 4.16 million square miles were covered in forest, while another 5.12 million square miles of dryland (1,327 million hectares)...