{"id":2558,"date":"2022-04-21T13:59:37","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T13:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatetransform.com\/?p=2558"},"modified":"2022-07-05T16:10:09","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T16:10:09","slug":"forestation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatetransform.com\/forestation\/","title":{"rendered":"Forestation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In July 2019, Ethiopia made headlines worldwide through forestation after claiming its people had collectively planted <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2019\/07\/29\/africa\/ethiopia-plants-350-million-trees-intl-hnk\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">350 million trees in 12 hours<\/span><\/a><span id='easy-footnote-1-2558' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/climatetransform.com\/forestation\/#easy-footnote-bottom-1-2558' title='CNN, S.P. and H.R. (n.d.). &lt;i&gt;Ethiopia plants more than 350 million trees in 12 hours&lt;\/i&gt;. [online] CNN. Available at: https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2019\/07\/29\/africa\/ethiopia-plants-350-million-trees-intl-hnk\/index.html.'><sup>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. This mass planting of trees effort was a world record. In fact, the story was so popular that other governments soon made similar pledges. Britain\u2019s Jeremy Corbyn pledged to plant <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">two billion trees in 20 years<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> if elected<span id='easy-footnote-2-2558' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/climatetransform.com\/forestation\/#easy-footnote-bottom-2-2558' title='&lt;\/span&gt;General election 2019: Labour promises to plant two billion trees by 2040. (2019). &lt;i&gt;BBC News&lt;\/i&gt;. [online] 28 Nov. Available at: https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/election-2019-50578207.&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: 400;&quot;&gt;'><sup>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. Canada\u2019s Justin Trudeau went further and promised <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JustinTrudeau\/status\/1177613585381543936?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">two billion trees in ten years<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Even former US president, Donald Trump claimed he would <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">plant a trillion trees<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to rescue our planet\u2019s health<span id='easy-footnote-3-2558' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/climatetransform.com\/forestation\/#easy-footnote-bottom-3-2558' title='&lt;\/span&gt;Irfan, U. (2020). &lt;i&gt;Tree planting is Trump\u2019s politically safe new climate plan&lt;\/i&gt;. [online] Vox. Available at: https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2020\/2\/4\/21123456\/sotu-trump-trillion-trees-climate-change.&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: 400;&quot;&gt;'><sup>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But, the headline-grabbing initiatives raised more questions than they answered. Was it possible to plant that many trees so quickly? Is tree planting as good as people claim? And, would this actually work? In other words, could Ethiopia be a model for the world, or was it a big gimmick?<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>What is forestation?<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/climatetransform.com\/the-future-of-forestry\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forestation<\/a> is the process of growing trees on the land. There are three types:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">F<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">orest restoration <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">involves rebuilding areas that have degraded\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reforestation involves regrowing trees on land where they have previously been destroyed<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Afforestation consists of growing a new forest on land where one hadn&#8217;t existed before<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All three are slightly different from each other, but with significant implications. Ethiopia\u2019s drive was a mix of all three. The country\u2019s forest cover had previously fallen from 35 percent of its land area 50 years ago, to just above four percent by the 2000s.<span id='easy-footnote-4-2558' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/climatetransform.com\/forestation\/#easy-footnote-bottom-4-2558' title='team, R.C. (2019). Can you plant 350 million trees in a day? &lt;i&gt;BBC News&lt;\/i&gt;. [online] 11 Aug. Available at: https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-africa-49266983.'><sup>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Ethiopians felt the impact with more droughts, flooding and desertification.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI think Ethiopia is one of only a few countries very invested in getting trees back in the landscape\u201d, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fred Stolle at<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the World Resources Institute told Fast Company magazine recently. \u201cThey\u2019ve gotten to a very bad place. And so they really see the value.&#8221;<span id='easy-footnote-5-2558' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/climatetransform.com\/forestation\/#easy-footnote-bottom-5-2558' title='&lt;\/span&gt;Peters, A. (2019). &lt;i&gt;Ethiopia just planted 353 million trees in a single day&lt;\/i&gt;. [online] Fast Company. Available at: https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/90383148\/ethiopia-just-planted-353-million-trees-in-a-single-day [Accessed 18 Jan. 2021].'><sup>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But, forestation is m<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ore than just the practice of growing trees \u2013 it is a science. It is the art of understanding nature itself and discerning environmental language. Trees and plants need careful nurturing to ensure that they survive and fit into the ecosystem around them. A recent feature in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2020\/12\/02\/magazine\/tree-communication-mycorrhiza.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the New York Times<\/a> explored how trees in a forest communicate and share resources with each other through fungi. Forests are more than a collection of trees.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Planting trees: What does it do?<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Forestation has tremendous benefits, not just for the environment, but for the local region and economy. New trees take carbon out of the atmosphere and store it for hundreds of years. This reduces the earth\u2019s temperature and protects us from destabilizing climate change. Since forestation is widely practiced, we can quickly implement it around the world to fight climate change. According to one estimate, China\u2019s new forests have absorbed over 774 million tonnes of carbon from 1973 to 2003<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<span id='easy-footnote-6-2558' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/climatetransform.com\/forestation\/#easy-footnote-bottom-6-2558' title='&lt;\/span&gt;Xu, X. and Li, K. (2010). Biomass carbon sequestration by planted forests in China. &lt;i&gt;Chinese Geographical Science&lt;\/i&gt;, 20(4), pp.289\u2013297.&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: 400;&quot;&gt;'><sup>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moreover, forests create ecological diversity in the flora and fauna they harbor. They can also be a source of recreation \u2013 cultural festivals, walks, and hikes \u2013 in addition to providing jobs in the forestation and tourism sectors.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Forestation: Climate change<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In places like Ethiopia, growing forests can help farmers and rural people too. Forests attract more local rainfall, improve the soil and protect the land from flooding. This allows farmers to grow more food sustainably.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Which trees are grown for forestation?<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here, it gets complicated and controversial. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Introducing non-native trees to a region can do more harm than good. Some tree species can change the soil acidity while others can deprive surrounding trees of resources. In some cases, planting trees may destroy local ecosystems grown over thousands of years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One strong criticism of tree-planting programs is that they lead to mono-cultural plantations. In other words, people are led to plant the same tree species for miles. A forest plantation covered by the same species does not increase biodiversity and is more vulnerable to being wiped out by disease. Some reforestation programs have \u201creplaced traditionally biodiverse farming systems with monocultures of eucalyptus and rubber\u201d, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fred Pearce at Yale found<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<span id='easy-footnote-7-2558' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/climatetransform.com\/forestation\/#easy-footnote-bottom-7-2558' title='&lt;\/span&gt;Not, W. (2019). &lt;i&gt;Why Green Pledges Will Not Create the Natural Forests We Need&lt;\/i&gt;. [online] Yale E360. Available at: https:\/\/e360.yale.edu\/features\/why-green-pledges-will-not-create-the-natural-forests-we-need.&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: 400;&quot;&gt;'><sup>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Therefore, we need forestation with a variety of native species that sustain each other. And more importantly, keeping older forests is better for the environment than cutting them down and building new ones.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Ethiopian government took some of these issues into account. Volunteers were provided with native seedlings and trained to ensure that they were planted correctly. But, there is no independent verification of the government&#8217;s claims, and a<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0BBC investigation<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> found it difficult to confirm the figures too.<span id='easy-footnote-8-2558' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/climatetransform.com\/forestation\/#easy-footnote-bottom-8-2558' title='&lt;\/span&gt;team, R.C. (2019). Can you plant 350 million trees in a day? &lt;i&gt;BBC News&lt;\/i&gt;. [online] 11 Aug. Available at: https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-africa-49266983.&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: 400;&quot;&gt;'><sup>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ethiopia may not have managed to plant 350 million trees in 12 hours. But, at the very least, the country started an important debate around the world. If creating more awareness of forestation was its only legacy \u2013 that is good enough for now.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In July 2019, Ethiopia made headlines worldwide through forestation after claiming its people had collectively planted 350 million trees in 12 hours. This mass planting of trees effort was a world record. In fact, the story was so popular that other governments soon made similar pledges. Britain\u2019s Jeremy Corbyn pledged to plant two billion trees [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":3369,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,26,212],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.11 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Forestation - Climate Transform<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Forestation is the process of restoring trees on land. 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