Green Options

Slash-and-burn agriculture may be bad for the environment, but in southeast Asia, the cure may be worse than the disease. Endorsed by multiple governments, at both the local and national levels, as well as numerous business interests, everyone from individual farmers to massive corporations has been replacing the traditional slash-and-burn, more technically known as swidden, method of farming with rubber plantations managed with European techniques. In the last 20 years, over 1.2 million acres of land in China, Thailand, Vietnam, [...]

Trees for the Future, a US-based NGO, has planted 65 million trees in dozens of countries. And they’re still going.

For almost exactly 20 years now, Trees for the Future has been coaching farmers on sustainable agroforestry techniques. That’s a fancy way to say farmers can improving their soil and crop quality by planting trees around the farm. The trees help by holding in soil moisture and drawing water back to refill water tables, preventing erosion and improving soil fertility.

By Lester R. Brown

Protecting the earth’s nearly 4 billion hectares of remaining forests and replanting those already lost are both essential for restoring the earth’s health, an important foundation for the new economy. Reducing rainfall runoff and the associated flooding and soil erosion, recycling rainfall inland, and restoring aquifer recharge depend on simultaneously reducing pressure on forests and on reforestation.

There is a vast unrealized potential in all countries to lessen the demands that are shrinking the earth’s forest cover. In industrial nations the greatest opportunity lies in reducing the quantity of wood used to make paper, and in developing countries it depends on reducing fuelwood use.

The rates of paper recycling in the top 10 paper-producing countries range widely, from China and Finland on the low end, recycling 33 and 38 percent of the paper they use, to South Korea and Germany on the high end, at 77 and 66 percent. The United States, the world’s largest paper consumer, is far behind South Korea, but it has raised the share of paper recycled from roughly one fourth in the early 1980s to 50 percent in 2005. If every country recycled as much of its paper as South Korea does, the amount of wood pulp used to produce paper worldwide would drop by one third.

The use of paper, perhaps more than any other single product, reflects the throwaway mentality that evolved during the last century. There is an enormous possibility for reducing paper use simply by replacing facial tissues, paper napkins, disposable diapers, and paper shopping bags with reusable cloth alternatives.

With the help of conservation groups, the U.S. Office of Surface Mining launched the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative to attempt to rescue the thousands forest acres left barren by mountaintop coal mining.

The volunteer-based initiative, which hopes to eventually plant 38 million trees in Appalachia, received the endorsement of the United Nations Environment Program yesterday. The UN aims to plant 7 billion trees in the next three years across the globe, so every small project across the globe contributes.

Speaking at a news conference last Friday, Spain’s Environment Minister Elena Espinosa announced plans to establish a Climate Change Research Institute in the Northeastern city of Zaragoza. She also unveiled an exciting initiative to plant 45 million trees across the country between 2009 and 2012, roughly one for every member of the population.

Amongst European nations, Spain stands to suffer more than most from the effects of climate change and global warming, with nearly a third of the nation’s roughly 200,000 square miles threatened with a “significant risk” of desertification. In direct response to the threat, the government will invest around 90 million Euros as part of the reforestation drive.

From action steps to green your child’s school to kids actions inspired by green media games and eco-focus, today we’ll continue where we left off in Part One of our Eco Child’s Play Green Media Mini-Series, honoring kids’ green media that embeds positive cues and meaningful play, and turning that inspiration into action.

At left is Dizzywood’s celebration of Wildwood Glen’s reforestation, where kids planted 15,000 trees in online to offline eco-parity, partnering with The Arbor Day Foundation. I’ve added a slew of other tree-planting ideas and sites at the end of this piece to get ready for 9-22-08, worldwide Tree Planting Day coming up in the next couple weeks. In keeping with the green media theme of hope, promise and eco-renewal…here’s more from my interview with Scott Arpajian, Co-Founder of preteen virtual world, Dizzywood…

Editor’s note: Is planting trees a valuable tool for fighting climate change? Or is it a feel-good activity without much effect? Our friends at Eco-Libris point to another study which argues tree-planting can work in sequestering carbon dioxide. This post was originally published on Friday, May 16, 2008.

There is an ongoing debate on the effectiveness of trees planting operations as a tool mitigate global warming. A new research from Australia adds more input into it, showing that agroforestry and reforestation are an important carbon sink.

The research, as reported on The Age, was conducted by researchers from Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), Queensland Climate Change Centre of Excellence, and Queensland Department of Primary Industries & Fisheries. It was presented to an agriculture, greenhouse gases and emissions trading conference on the Gold Coast.

Dr. Beverley Henry from MLA, who presented the research, showed that different forms of land management had a variety of effects on soil carbon. She said, according to the article, that researchers, analysing data from 74 publications on land-use changes, had made several conclusions:

Paso del Istmo is a 20 kilometer-long land bridge in Nicaragua. Conservationists believe that the narrow strip of tropical forest could absorb some 170,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases over the next 40 years. What’s more, carbon offsets might make these forests worth more as trees than as lumber.

For millennia, the land bridge has been a corridor allowing animal migration between North and South America. It now has some of the most highly concentrated biodiversity in Nicaragua. Conservation group, Paso Pacifico, wishes to permanently protect the land bridge from developers, but where could they find funding to make this dream a reality?

Enter the carbon offset company, CarbonFund. In league with Paso Pacifico and the Rainforest Alliance, carbon offsets offer the funding to make conservation of the Paso del Istmo land bridge a reality; and they’re not stopping at just conservation.

What makes the energy consumption survey at Bosquevirtual.com unique–if you can get past the Forest Gump theme song in the site’s video promo–is the ambitious, tech-heavy cyber-activism sponsored by the survey’s Spanish creators, Union Fenosa.

For each person who takes the survey, Union Fenosa donates 1 Euro to Acciónatura, a Spanish organization that uses the money to reforest the Atlantic Forest in Brazil.

Bosquevirtual, or “Virtual Forest,” has also teamed up with Second Life, a 3D web Mecca for internet socializing. Along with the actual donation to reforestation, then, every two surveys completed generates the planting of a virtual tree in a virtual forest in the Second Life 3D world.

Trees are good for people and for the environment. Forests act as natural sinks for absorbing carbon dioxide, prevent and reduce soil erosion and water pollution, and provide habitat for wildlife. Trees also add green space in urban settings and offer a sense of beauty and community. When appropriately landscaped around buildings, trees serve as wind buffers, create shade to reduce energy costs, and improve overall property value.

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Photo credit: Tree-Nation Tree-Nation is an organization aiming to plant 8 million trees in Niger, Africa in the shape of a huge heart to combat deforestation and global warming. Folks who want to get involved can visit Tree-Nation's website and buy trees for themselves or gift them to others for milestones such as weddings, new babies, or even to advertise a business.

Purchasers of a tree are asked to plant it on

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