#reforesting

[kinasecrystal]

Wow! I knew that there were efforts ongoing, but this is the first solid timeline I’ve heard - we are just 10 years from staring to reforest the Appalachian mountains with blight-resistant ~American chestnuts, beginning to undo one of the greatest environmental disasters of the last century. If I understand correctly, these hybrids have been selectively bred for generations with the remaining wild American chestnut trees (they will sprout and even flower, but they die young from the blight) until the only observable Chinese chestnut trait left is the blight resistance. The growth habit, leaves, and seed size look exactly like the Native American tree and the hope is that they’ll adopt the same ecological niche as the old American chestnuts (which the Chinese chestnut trees will not).

[underthewingsofthblackeagle]

After being deforested centuries ago, southern Scotland is now dry and barren. Now, to preserve nature and protect the climate, weekly volunteers are replanting pastureland to be forests in the future.

[nawilla]

You realize that centuries from now instead of writing creepy pastas about finding random stairs in the woods, the cyborg kids are going to write about finding random golf tees and abandoned golf holes with the pristine flags still in place. (Non-biodegradable of course).

22nd Century Angsty Cyborg Teen: don't look at them. Don't touch them. Don't sit in the golf cart. Don't get a hole in one.

Yo this rules and is genuinely uplifting

[nancywait]

Arbor Day

Today, National Arbor Day, observed on the last Friday in April and celebrated in all 50 states, I’m celebrating SOUL, (Sustaining Our Urban Landscape) a group reforesting the urban landscape of New Orleans. 🌳 The official birthplace of Arbor Day is Nebraska City, Nebraska, brought about by the tree-loving secretary of the Nebraska Territory, and in 1872 when he proposed a tree planting…

[reasonsforhope]

"A century of gradual reforestation across the American East and Southeast has kept the region cooler than it otherwise would have become, a new study shows.

The pioneering study of progress shows how the last 25 years of accelerated reforestation around the world might significantly pay off in the second half of the 21st century.

Using a variety of calculative methods and estimations based on satellite and temperature data from weather stations, the authors determined that forests in the eastern United States cool the land surface by 1.8 – 3.6°F annually compared to nearby grasslands and croplands, with the strongest effect seen in summer, when cooling amounts to 3.6 – 9°F.

The younger the forest, the more this cooling effect was detected, with forest trees between 20 and 40 years old offering the coolest temperatures underneath.

“The reforestation has been remarkable and we have shown this has translated into the surrounding air temperature,” Mallory Barnes, an environmental scientist at Indiana University who led the research, told The Guardian.

“Moving forward, we need to think about tree planting not just as a way to absorb carbon dioxide but also the cooling effects in adapting for climate change, to help cities be resilient against these very hot temperatures.”

The cooling of the land surface affected the air near ground level as well, with a stepwise reduction in heat linked to reductions in near-surface air temps.

“Analyses of historical land cover and air temperature trends showed that the cooling benefits of reforestation extend across the landscape,” the authors write. “Locations surrounded by reforestation were up to 1.8°F cooler than neighboring locations that did not undergo land cover change, and areas dominated by regrowing forests were associated with cooling temperature trends in much of the Eastern United States.”

By the 1930s, forest cover loss in the eastern states like the Carolinas and Mississippi had stopped, as the descendants of European settlers moved in greater and greater numbers into cities and marginal agricultural land was abandoned.

The Civilian Conservation Corps undertook large replanting efforts of forests that had been cleared, and this is believed to be what is causing the lower average temperatures observed in the study data.

However, the authors note that other causes, like more sophisticated crop irrigation and increases in airborne pollutants that block incoming sunlight, may have also contributed to the lowering of temperatures over time. They also note that tree planting might not always produce this effect, such as in the boreal zone where increases in trees are linked with increases in humidity that way raise average temperatures."

-via Good News Network, February 20, 2024

[hope-for-the-planet]

China Completes It's "Great Green Wall" to Combat Desertification

Image and text from this Reuter's article:

China has finished a 46-year campaign to encircle its largest desert with trees, part of national efforts to end desertification and curb the sandstorms that plague parts of the country during the spring, state media reported on Friday. A "green belt" of about 3,000 km (2,000 miles) around the Taklamakan was completed on Thursday in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, after workers planted the final 100 metres of trees on the desert's southern edge, the Communist Party-run People's Daily said. Efforts to enclose the desert with trees began in 1978 with the launch of China's "Three-North Shelterbelt" project, colloquially known as the Great Green Wall. More than 30 million hectares (116,000 square miles) of trees have been planted. Tree planting in the arid northwest has helped bring China's total forest coverage above 25% by the end of last year, up from around 10% in 1949. Forest coverage in Xinjiang alone has risen from 1% to 5% in the last 40 years, the People's Daily said.

[dandelionsresilience]

Good News - July 15-21

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735! (Or check out my new(ly repurposed) Patreon!)

1. Thai tiger numbers swell as prey populations stabilize in western forests

“The tiger population density in a series of protected areas in western Thailand has more than doubled over the past two decades, according to new survey data. […] The most recent year of surveys, which concluded in November 2023, photographed 94 individual tigers, up from 75 individuals in the previous year, and from fewer than 40 in 2007. […] A total of 291 individual tigers older than 1 year were recorded, as well as 67 cubs younger than 1 year.”

2. Work starts to rewild former cattle farm

“Ecologists have started work to turn a former livestock farm into a nature reserve [… which] will become a "mosaic of habitats" for insects, birds and mammals. [… R]ewilding farmland could benefit food security locally by encouraging pollinators, improving soil health and soaking up flood water. [… “N]ature restoration doesn't preclude food production. We want to address [food security] by using nature-based solutions."”

3. Harnessing ‘invisible forests in plain view’ to reforest the world

“[… T]he degraded land contained numerous such stumps with intact root systems capable of regenerating themselves, plus millions of tree seeds hidden in the soil, which farmers could simply encourage to grow and reforest the landscape[….] Today, the technique of letting trees resprout and protecting their growth from livestock and wildlife [… has] massive potential to help tackle biodiversity loss and food insecurity through resilient agroforestry systems. [… The UN’s] reported solution includes investing in land restoration, “nature-positive” food production, and rewilding, which could return between $7 and $30 for every dollar spent.”

4. California bars school districts from outing LGBTQ+ kids to their parents

“Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the SAFETY Act today – a bill that prohibits the forced outing of transgender and gay students, making California the first state to explicitly prohibit school districts from doing so. […] Matt Adams, a head of department at a West London state school, told PinkNews at the time: “Teachers and schools do not have all the information about every child’s home environment and instead of supporting a pupil to be themselves in school, we could be putting them at risk of harm.””

5. 85% of new electricity built in 2023 came from renewables

“Electricity supplied by renewables, like hydropower, solar, and wind, has increased gradually over the past few decades — but rapidly in recent years. [… C]lean energy now makes up around 43 percent of global electricity capacity. In terms of generation — the actual power produced by energy sources — renewables were responsible for 30 percent of electricity production last year. […] Along with the rise of renewable sources has come a slowdown in construction of non-renewable power plants as well as a move to decommission more fossil fuel facilities.”

6. Deadly cobra bites to "drastically reduce" as scientists discover new antivenom

“After successful human trials, the snake venom antidote could be rolled out relatively quickly to become a "cheap, safe and effective drug for treating cobra bites" and saving lives around the globe, say scientists. Scientists have found that a commonly used blood thinner known as heparin can be repurposed as an inexpensive antidote for cobra venom. […] Using CRISPR gene-editing technology […] they successfully repurposed heparin, proving that the common blood thinner can stop the necrosis caused by cobra bites.”

7. FruitFlow: a new citizen science initiative unlocks orchard secrets

“"FruitWatch" has significantly refined phenological models by integrating extensive citizen-sourced data, which spans a wider geographical area than traditional methods. These enhanced models offer growers precise, location-specific predictions, essential for optimizing agricultural planning and interventions. […] By improving the accuracy of phenological models, farmers can better align their operations with natural biological cycles, enhancing both yield and quality.”

8. July 4th Means Freedom for Humpback Whale Near Valdez, Alaska

“The NOAA Fisheries Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Hotline received numerous reports late afternoon on July 3. A young humpback whale was entangled in the middle of the Port of Valdez[….] “The success of this mission was due to the support of the community, as they were the foundation of the effort,” said Moran. [… Members of the community] were able to fill the critical role of acting as first responders to a marine mammal emergency. “Calling in these reports is extremely valuable as it allows us to respond when safe and appropriate, and also helps us gain information on various threats affecting the animals,” said Lyman.”

9. Elephants Receive First of Its Kind Vaccine

“Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus is the leading cause of death for Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) born in facilities in North America and also causes calf deaths in the wild in Asia. A 40-year-old female received the new mRNA vaccine, which is expected to help the animal boost immunity[….]”

10. Conservation partners and Indigenous communities working together to restore forests in Guatemala

“The K’iche have successfully managed their natural resources for centuries using their traditional governing body and ancestral knowledge. As a result, Totonicapán is home to Guatemala’s largest remaining stand of conifer forest. […] EcoLogic has spearheaded a large-scale forest restoration project at Totonicapán, where 13 greenhouses now hold about 16,000 plants apiece, including native cypresses, pines, firs, and alders. […] The process begins each November when community members gather seeds. These seeds then go into planters that include upcycled coconut fibers and mycorrhizal fungi, which help kickstart fertilization. When the plantings reach about 12 inches, they’re ready for distribution.”

July 8-14 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[unbfacts]

[probablyasocialecologist]

The potential of newly created forests to draw down carbon is often overstated. They can be harmful to biodiversity. Above all, they are really damaging when used, as they often are, as avoidance offsets— “as an excuse to avoid cutting emissions,” Crowther said. The popularity of planting new trees is a problem—at least partly—of Crowther’s own making. In 2019, his lab at ETH Zurich found that the Earth had room for an additional 1.2 trillion trees, which, the lab’s research suggested, could suck down as much as two-thirds of the carbon that humans have historically emitted into the atmosphere. “This highlights global tree restoration as our most effective climate change solution to date,” the study said. Crowther subsequently gave dozens of interviews to that effect. This seemingly easy climate solution sparked a tree-planting craze by companies and leaders eager to burnish their green credentials without actually cutting their emissions, from Shell to Donald Trump. It also provoked a squall of criticism from scientists, who argued that the Crowther study had vastly overestimated the land suitable for forest restoration and the amount of carbon it could draw down. (The study authors later corrected the paper to say tree restoration was only “one of the most effective” solutions, and could suck down at most one-third of the atmospheric carbon, with large uncertainties.) Crowther, who says his message was misinterpreted, put out a more nuanced paper last month, which shows that preserving existing forests can have a greater climate impact than planting trees. He then brought the results to COP28 to “kill greenwashing” of the kind that his previous study seemed to encourage—that is, using unreliable evidence on the benefits of planting trees as an excuse to keep on emitting carbon. “Killing greenwashing doesn’t mean stop investing in nature,” he says. “It means doing it right. It means distributing wealth to the Indigenous populations and farmers and communities who are living with biodiversity.”

[...]

Crowther’s November study—with more than 200 scientists listed as coauthors—instead stresses the power of preserving intact woodlands. While restoring destroyed or fragmented forests would absorb a potential 87 gigatonnes of carbon, simply allowing existing forests to grow to maturity would absorb an additional 139 gigatonnes. These estimates exclude urban, farming, and grazing areas that may once have held forests but are unlikely to be given over to nature.

[biophonies]

new thing for new business cards: some lush future Africa, de colon1zed & self determined, where the great green wall has grown thick and steady & date palms & mango trees could maybe share canopies, adapting to the new weather patterns & all hope is not lost

(see more things from me via my newsletter, patreon, or bluesky)

[muffinlance]

JUST FINISHED THE SKIN STEALER'S SON. YOU ARE A GENIUS. I WANT TO CRY.

I am sure Anon is crying tears of joy. This is certainly nothing to be concerned about. Please read my very feel-good book where everyone has a good time and gets to eat baked goods at the end

[cognitivejustice]

How local heroes reforested Rio’s green heart

Photographs taken years apart show how reforestation has transformed Morro Do Urubu, an area in the north of Rio de Janeiro: left, virtually treeless in 1990; right, abundant tree cover in 2019. Composite: Angela Meurer & Plinio Senna

A restoration project to revitalise the Atlantic forest is making the city a much more liveable place in the face of increasingly frequent heatwaves

Rio de Janeiro’s striking blend of urban infrastructure and tropical jungle, cradled between granite peaks and the sea, earned the city Unesco world heritage status in 2012. Yet few people realise that the verdant forests cloaking Rio’s dramatic hills are largely the result of human intervention.

“None of this was here before. Nothing, zero trees,” says Santos, motioning towards the woods surrounding Tavares Bastos, a small favela clinging to a hill that overlooks Guanabara Bay. The 40-year-old, who uses the name Leleco, planted some of those trees himself as part of a pioneering reforestation project run by the municipal government.

Leleco initially got involved with the project because he needed a job. Twenty years on, he leads three small teams to maintain and enrich restored forests at Tavares Bastos and two other sites. It’s challenging work that involves toiling away in the heat, scrambling up steep slopes with delicate seedlings and constantly weeding invasive non-native species such as bamboo. Still, Leleco couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

“I feel responsible when I look at all this, how it was before and how it is now. I see birds that weren’t here before, animals that have come back into the forest, and I think, boy, I’m a part of all this,” he says, with a hint of pride.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

The two tracts of land at the edge of the ancient forest in Borneo were relatively small: One was just 74 acres, the other 195. They had also been heavily degraded by human activity. One site consisted of abandoned rice paddies, leaving barren spaces largely devoid of wildlife. The other was deforested grassland that caught fire every year.

But starting in 2009, people from neighboring communities were hired by a local environmental group to help restore the land. They planted native seedlings, yanked out weeds, dug firebreaks and watered the area during droughts. Aided by the region’s heat and abundant rain, the young plants, which included native hardwoods and fruit trees, grew swiftly, and soon created a canopy.

Late in 2020, cameras were set up on the replanted tracts. The land bordered Gunung Palung National Park, home to endangered orangutans, pangolins, white-bearded gibbons and macaques, and researchers wanted to see if wildlife was coming back.

Their findings were heartening. The cameras documented 47 species of mammals, birds and reptiles, 18 of them at risk for extinction, including an endangered Sunda pangolin and two endangered Bornean orangutans.

The study, recently published in the journal Tropical Natural History, shows that community involvement can play a vital role in restoring wildlife habitat and forest ecosystems, according to researchers.

“When we do community-run reforestation, things really grow back faster,” said Nina Finley, the research manager at Health in Harmony, an American nonprofit organization that conducted the study along with an affiliated organization in Indonesia, Alam Sehat Lestari, and staffers from the national park.

Earlier reforestation efforts with less community involvement resulted in young plants that were vulnerable to weeds and wildfires, Ms. Finley said. But after villagers were hired to regularly weed and water the land, the survival rate of saplings rose substantially, and is now above 70 percent.

Ms. Finley said that addressing the needs of the people living nearby first was key to the project’s success.

[reasonsforhope]

"Sunlight dapples the once-denuded forest floor as saplings spread their branches and leaves overhead, slowly forming a lush canopy.

Beside each young tree, a sign notes its species. Lupuna, says one, the colloquial Peruvian term, and below that its scientific name, Ceiba pentandra — in other words, a kapok tree, known for its cotton-like fibers. Huito, says another sign, or Geinpa americana, which produces edible gray berries.

Each sapling is distinct, a reflection of the Amazon's stunning biodiversity, with so many different species that you might go acres without finding a repeat.

Yet this young forest did not spring up naturally. It has been carefully recreated by humans in an area that was, until just three years ago, a heavily contaminated moonscape.

This land was stripped of its dense vegetation by miners scouring the subsoil for tiny specks of gold, using mercury to separate the gold from the sediment. Many thought that a healthy forest would never thrive in impoverished, mercury-laden topsoil and that the piles of sandy tailings, the residue from the gold mining effort, and the pools of wastewater were irremediable...

"It feels good to see the forest grow back," says Pedro Ynfantes, 66, the miner whose legal mining concession of 1,110 acres includes this 10-acre patch of land where this young forest is located. "We don't want to deforest. When we had the opportunity to let the forest grow back, we took it. It's much better this way."

The opportunity he refers to came via U.S. nonprofit Pure Earth, which works with communities across the Global Southto remediate environmental problems left behind by mining, much of it illegal. Their biggest targets are mercury and lead contamination...

Security forces have launched anti-mining operations down the years, even blowing up the miners' equipment deep in the jungle. But most local politicians, including Madre de Dios' members of Peru's national congress, broadly support the miners, who are a powerful constituency in the relatively sparsely populated jungle region.

Restoring the forest

Pictured: France Cabanillas works for the nonprofit group Pure Earth, which is spearheading an effort to plant saplings in areas of the Peruvian Amazon that were devastated by illegal gold mining.

Now there's an effort to address the damage. Initially working with the region's legal miners, most of whom were here before the 2009 gold rush kicked off, the nonprofit group Pure Earth is using this patch of Ynfantes' land as a pilot project to show how the rainforest can be regenerated after the last traces of gold have been plucked from the soil.

It took a sustained outreach effort. Many miners are wary of or even downright hostile to foreign NGOs, which have repeatedly called for gold mining to be banned or severely curbed in the Peruvian Amazon — steps they say would cost them their livelihood.

"I am feeling optimistic," says France Cabanillas, Pure Earth's local coordinator, who has been appealing to the frustration of many miners at the heavy toll they have taken on the jungle and their desire to minimize their environmental footprint for the next generation.

"We still have a lot to do but this pilot is going well. Down the years, the miners have been getting a lot of stick but not much carrot when it comes to their environmental impacts," says Cabanillas. "We are offering them a carrot, allowing them to remediate their own impacts. Many of the miners do not want to be destroying the rainforest."

Before the miners plant the carefully-selected mix of tree species, they had to prepare the earth. Most of the topsoil had been washed away by the miners' heavy use of hoses.

That preparation involved adding biochar (burnt organic material) and even molasses, which contain fixed carbon and minerals, along with various other nutrients. The miners also had to dig tiny moats around the saplings to prevent all of this new planting from being washed away. Now, after three years, the forest is visibly coming back.

The rejuvenated rainforest also mitigates the impact of the mercury used by many of the illegal miners.

Research done by Pure Earth shows that the barren, sandy soil emits mercury. But in a rainforest, the ecosystem actually absorbs some of the metal, boosting public health."

-via NPR, April 2, 2024

[proteusolm]

having worked as a tree planter makes me question tree planting charities, especially businesses that do the "one tree planted for every purchase!" thing so hard. Where are these trees being planted? Was it historically forested there or would something like grassland restoration be more appropriate? What species are being planted? Is an effort made to ensure they diverse and native to the location? Are studies being done to ensure a good survival rate? Are these trees being thinned later to make sure they grow well or left dense? Who is planting these trees? Are they being paid well? The websites are usually so vague.

I especially raise an eyebrow at huge charities which have existed for a number of years boasting about what actually isn't very many trees. Like, a million trees sounds like a lot. But the camp of ~50 people I plant with, at least half of which are generally rookies still figuring it out, is contracted for a smidge over 4 million trees in a single season, which is only early May to mid July.