According to the BBC, a recent study have calculated that the earth is home to over 3 trillion trees. This study, led by researchers from Yale University, claims that the total number of plants has fallen by about 46% since the beginning of human civilization.

Despite the decline, this new estimate of tree population is about seven times more than some previous estimates. The study, conducted by a team of researchers from across the globe, calculated the tree population using forest inventories, satellite imagery and some advanced supercomputer technologies.

Thomas Crowther, a researcher from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and study’s lead author, reports, “Trees are among the most prominent and critical organisms on Earth, yet we are only recently beginning to comprehend their global extent and distribution”.

The team began the study after Plant for the Planet, a children’s initiative that leads the “Billion Tree Campaign,” requested to know global tree populations. The team approached Crowther about two years ago, and they asked him about the tree numbers at regional and global level.

According to estimate from that time, earth had slightly more than 400 billion trees worldwide, which meant only 61 trees per person. Those predictions were derived using data from satellite imagery and forest area estimation. The new study combined a number of more effective methods and determined that the planet has more than three trillion trees.