Forestations

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The practice or process of establishing forested areas, especially through planting trees in non-forested regions
2. The act of creating or restoring forests, often for environmental purposes or to increase green cover
3. A systematic effort to cultivate or promote woodland growth in areas previously lacking tree cover

Etymology: Forestations is the plural of "forestation", which is formed from "forest" and the suffix "-ation". The suffix descends through Old French from Latin "-ātiō", a noun-forming ending that turns a verb into the name of an action or process. So a forestation is the act of turning land into forest, and the plural simply refers to several such projects. The base word "forest" has a more tangled past. It came into English from Old French, where it likely developed from Medieval Latin "forestis", a term for an area of land set aside under special law for hunting. In that original sense, a forest was a legal territory rather than a stretch of trees, which makes the modern meaning of planting new woodland a reversal of what the word first marked out.

Synonyms: afforestation, reforestation