We have a 2.5 trillion lead. And I suppose that there are more trees now than there were 35 years ago. I don't know how reliable psmag is, but multiple sites basically say the same thing. https://psmag.com/environment/the-planet-now-has-more-trees-than-it-did-35-years-ago

Those figures are somewhat misleading. That study counts agricultural land as “forest”. Which I suppose you could argue is technically true I guess. It says this: [quote]All the tree cover data comes with an important caveat, however: Tree cover is not necessarily forest cover. Industrial timber plantations, mature oil palm estates, and other non-natural "planted forests" qualify as tree cover. For example, cutting down a 100-hectare tract of primary forest and replacing it with a 100-hectare palm plantation will show up in the data as no net change in forest cover: the 100-hectare loss is perfectly offset by the 100-hectare gain in tree cover. That activity would be counted as "deforestation" by the FAO. Therefore, tree cover loss does not directly translate to deforestation in all cases.[/quote] They define forest differently to the UN studies. Forest to them includes agricultural forests. Whereas the UN defines it as this: [quote]Deforestation is the permanent destruction of forests in order to make the land available for other uses. An estimated 18 million acres (7.3 million hectares) of forest, which is roughly the size of the country of Panama, are lost each year, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).[/quote] Here’s an article about the UN’s report: https://amp.livescience.com/27692-deforestation.html It also notes that about half of the world's tropical forests have been cleared.

When I say "forest" I generally mean "a large area with a bunch of trees". I can see the difference in the natural forest and plantations, not sure if officially it is a forest though. You could easily convince me either way.

Trees are trees wherever they come from. However natural forests are much more preferable because of the biodiversity and the ecosystems they support - which you don’t get from human plantations. Also both reports acknowledge there are massive losses of tropical forests (like the Amazon). More than half since the sixties in fact. Tropical forests are often called “the lungs of the planet”. Tropical forests absorb CO2. Less tropical forests means worse climate change.

Probably. So would saying that there are more trees but less forests be fair?

I don’t know if there are more trees? Maybe? I imagine native forests (especially in the tropics) are much more dense in terms of trees per square foot. Look at a plantation and the trees are all spaced evenly apart. Your study only looks at land coverage. It doesn’t look at density of trees on that land. I may be wrong though I haven’t looked into it.