How we get tree planting wrong | It's Complicated
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ธ.ค. 2021
- In the face of the impending climate catastrophe, there has been a growing clamour to repopulate the trillions of trees our planet has lost over the centuries.
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But large-scale tree planting is not helping, and in some cases it's creating more problems for the environment. Josh Toussaint-Strauss discusses how we've been getting tree planting wrong, and what we should be doing instead to safeguard precious ecosystems and reduce greenhouse gases
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#climatechange #trees #rewilding #treeplanting #plantingtrees - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
In permaculture we learn that the tree canopy is but one level in an ecosystem. You have shrubs, ground crops like herbs, and roots, etc.
Reducing everything to one element always has negative side effects. Focus on creating a biodiverse mini-ecosystems. Don’t just focus on trees.
That's why miyawaki reforestation is a thing. It is a kind of process in reforestation that starts with small shrubs then moves on with small trees to medium sized trees than on with large trees. It's very effective in reforesting at that it promotes more biodiversity. 1 note it is also important to plant native trees so..... goodluck
@@gk7754 but grasslands are also needed, and they have even more diversity by aq meter than rainforsts, so also grasses are needed, but native grasses.
@@codniggh1139 Citation needed. Also lawn = / = grassland.
There was an awesome Ted talk on permaculture focusing on native biodiversity, by an Indian engineer who became somewhat of an ecologist, several years ago. It was one of the best lectures I have listened to.
permaculture also contains building ponds storing water in the soil, instead of wasting drinking water on irigation
Who was put in charge of making these colossally ignorant decisions? I'm just a home gardener and even I know better than to plant monocultures and non natives. The incompetence is mind blowing.
Naive ones who wanted help save or atleast slow/halt climate change
People who have no real insight into how nature works. "A tree is a tree." mentality. Because they are only looking at it from the perspective of carbon sequestration, rather than the other, perhaps even more important, functions and benefits of trees.
People want to be performative rather than stop to think a bit.
People who want to cut these trees down for timber down the road... and their lobbyists in governments.
@@Waldemarvonanhalt justhaveathink
Protecting the forest we already have and small tree sites greening urban areas are the best things to do
Large scale monoculture planting can be ill-fated, no matter how well intended
The greening of the urban areas don't add much to the global budget, but in our urban hellscapes, they do remind us of the land and biota we are supposed to be connected to and.
Why not plant trees but plant diverse trees? For example all the trees that naturally live in the UK (or another country), in the % they would occur.
How would that not work?
And if they don't want to plant/reforest, why should we plant trees in cities and environs?
I don't get it.
We know we're cutting too many, how would replanting lost amazonian forest be bad? It takes hundreds of years to naturally grow back and the 21st century doesn't have hundreds of years.. Also the trees would help animals, which we are also destroying en masse.
There are examples of individuals or small groups that planted huge swathes of forest over decades, so that even tigers and elephants returned where they were gone before.
I agree monoculture is bad, but the reasoning around the albedo affect in a planted forest in Israel was bizarre. Warming the planet by absorbing heat? Its absorbing heat and carbon and locking it in, not warming the air, the reflected heat from the desert is warming the air.
Yeah, but sometimes the forests we need to protect most are populated by armed rebels or impoverished people who will turn around and cut down the trees as soon as you leave. Rainforests are mostly in problematic areas for conservation. There's nothing wrong with trying to aforest an area if, as the video points out, it's done right.
Monoculture has it's place. It's basically industrial crop.
The monoculture thing happened in Singapore in the 1980s. After we over planted Angsana Trees in the 1970s, we had a viral pandemic that left us without tree canopies to shade us.
yeah same issue with elms in north american cities
@@manchagojohnsonmanchago6367 :(
Angsana still the go to tree for indonesia gov lol. Fast in growing but Easy to break and fall down.
Such an important message. Thank you from an old botanist working to develop a native California plant nursery to promote just what you have described. Be well and thank you.
'The United States forest products industry accounts for approximately four percent of the nation's total manufacturing GDP, producing over $200 billion in products every year.' Jul 29, 2021
Source: USDA
1:25
@@GjaP_242 I wonder how climate change will effect those numbers?
That's a great initiative!
Trees generally grow very slowly. Not all of course, but the big ones are slow growers. I love that you mentioned Peat lands. They naturally develop quite slowly, but hold a tremendous amount of carbon. Revitalizing our wetlands (which have probably been the most devastated of all the ecosystems, second maybe to coral), even Peat, could be done quite fast with the right interventions.
Revitalizing ecosystems is free if they are simply left alone to recover from hardship naturally. Just like the phytoplankton that have been responsible for most photosynthesis on Earth since before plants even existed, they do well without human intervention.
@@JA238979 this is also why I despise renewable energy. Because of course, what our planet needs is MORE massive tracts of developed land. Please, build a 3,000 acre solar farm. Nothing could go wrong with that.
I am so glad to see people who think rationally about this subject. Carbon sequestration is dominantly done by the oceans, and the temperatures of the oceans are the cause of the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, not the consequence. It is so absurd to see all these renewable energy projects that are so unreliable when it comes to energy and so bad for the environment. I miss the old days when we actually cared about saving the environment and talked about actual problems and not this co2 bs that always seem to have "economy" attached to it.
@@michaeldeslex9834 Thank you for your thoughtful response! There is much more liquid water than gas on this planet by mass, as you know, nobody knows the temperature of it all, measurements of temperature variations are rarely shown in degrees K, corresponding graphs are always cropped, illusory correlations and limited data are represented as objective truths, and we would all die if there were not enough CO2 in the atmosphere. Europe had a shortage of purified CO2 a few months ago, for that matter. :)
Yeah, I want to restore the redwood forests, with other species of trees and animals of course. Allowing the mycorrhiza to thrive
I tried to speak out about a large county park district that was participating in one of the global tree planting programs. Their parks were already mostly woodlands, were covered with invasive Amur Honeysuckle (which prevented new seedling trees from starting), and they were planting the trees in the few remaining meadows they had to support pollinators. Everyone rolled their eyes, and told me to shut up.
to allow natural regeneration of forest, countries like the UK have to decrease grazing pressure of deer and sheep. There are way too many deer and theyre eating all the saplings. If the UK reintroduced extinct predators like the Lynx or Wolf, they could help forests comeback like they did in Yellowstone
Bring back the Neanderthals!
I used to be against deer and pigeon hunting on the basis that taking pleasure in killing another creature corrupts a person's conscience. Now I think about what working in a slaughterhouse often does to people (PTSD, high rates of domestic violence and alcoholism, injuries, contagious diseases) and about livestock welfare, and I wonder whether deer hunting might be the least of our worries. Most hunter-gatherer societies had rituals to be at peace with the animal lives they took.
But if we all ate 50% less meat then there would be far fewer problems as a result of the livestock industry - including carbon and methane emissions. By going vegan one day a week, people could gradually get better at making vegan meals and getting the right nutrition. And making meals together - like Britian's National Food Service groups do (no connection to the government, people organised it themselves) can help pass down skills and recipes. Unfortunately, most governments only know one way of limiting consumption, and that is by having prices increase. That cannot work. Everyone should make the same effort. But rationing won't happen in my lifetime.
Thankfully there are proposals the government is assessing to reintroduce lynx in Scotland, not sure about south of the border. It’s not just early stages, there’s discussions about how much to pay farmers if they get livestock eaten and stuff like that. I’m really hopeful it could work, they’re basing it off of successful lynx reintroductions on the mainland.
Thankfully most serious organizations are aware of these issues. Eden Reforestation, One Tree Planted, etc, use native species and work in cooperation with communities.
4:23
Unlocking climate funding for forest and farm producers
14 December 2021, Rome
'Worldwide, over 1.5 billion people depend on rural forest and farmland for their food and income. These people are often all-too-familiar with the adverse effects of climate change on their land and livelihoods.'
Source: FAO
The example on Costa Rica is out of context. Nobody is clearing land to plant trees. The country has gained more than 30% land area in forests and legal framework and enforcement make it virtually impossible to clear already existing forest
Yeah that example was really dumb, the Costa Rican government would be all over that if it was the case
Nah trust me costa rica is a loose place ive lived there the government dosent have enough power people still poach all the time and kids sit in the front seat of cars without a seatbelt. But at the same time atleast where i live hardly anyone cuts down forest to plant it back
@@sarcohuman8147 Uhh, how is that relevant?
@@thiccityd9773 how isnt it
In my country we've been promoting Assisted Natural Regeneration as an alternative. It also provides a livelihood especially for indigenous communities.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is why I roll my eyes every time I hear "we need to plant more trees", as it's said in the video it's ecosystems not just trees that store carbon. We need to allow space for ecosystems.
Yes i agree strongly but in environment where trees where depleted we need to plant forest manually as long as we plant it high native biodiversity
that is called a farm. not a forest
Yep
This simplifies forestry too much. In my part of the world, logging is not deforestation, unless it is done for development or farming. We have strict laws requiring reforestation. Much of our forest leans towards being a monoculture if left on it's own. On the one side of the mountains, and this is at the lower elevations, Red Alder will seed in, and be followed by Douglas-fir if left to nature. So, we plant Doug-fir and nature will add other seedlings like Western Hemlock and Western Red Cedar, if we don't plant those. Monoculture is a thing of the past due to outbreaks of Swiss needle cast. The trees that are planted are grown for specific sites and elevations. It's a much deeper topic than a short video can cover.
Exactly this.
Some fair points made but much missed. Nothing said of UK conifer plantations producing high quality construction timber that locks up carbon, creates a lot of jobs and reduces the amount of timber we bring in (we import 80% of our wood). With careful planning and execution, we can create forests that deliver both productivity and ecological enhancement. That process will not be summarised in a five minute video that massively simplifies a subject that is as complicated as forest management.
Not one forester interviewed. It’s ridiculous that all these TH-cam videos about wildfires and tree planting don’t consult the professionals that manage these lands. Obviously there’s a time for ecological protection but it’s hard to argue the effectiveness of plantations for producing shade intolerant softwoods for construction lumber and fiber.
Yes and I'd like to add that forestry takes time. So, we might see some stands of forest that were planted decades ago before the current science evolved. It takes years to grow trees and forestry methods change but the results might not be easy to see for decades.
But they’re not criticising plantations for lumber, they’re criticising supposed carbon sequestration schemes. The fact that the former can often masquerade as the latter is exactly the problem!
As a professional forester this video made me chuckle a few times
I got to visit a conifer farm in Guatemala. The owners who had recieved a government grant to plant it, had decided to let it revert back into a native temperate forest. It blew my mind that the government thought conifers would be economically viable between the inopportune climate and soil, they would make returns selling softwood. Usually my main gripe with conifers stands is that they aren't developed after they are planted and you end up with hundreds of small trees and lack of undergrowth development. It was kinda neat to see nature doing the job itself.
This is the very case with mangrove planting here in Thailand. More trees are being planted every day, and more ecosystems are constantly being destroyed.
The fact that the tree commission approved the planting clearly bad for the ecosystem is everything you ever need to know about our chance to not be terrible humans
So should they have left it totally baren??
@@mitchmitchell3142 Yes, They should have left nature do it's own thing there without interference from us.
@@mitchmitchell3142 exactly what the video said, leave it to mother nature and protect it from human intervention
@@guycross493 Doesn't work as proven in Iceland.
@@guycross493 Leave it mother nature LOL
So naive....
The key, we have found, is to let Nature take the lead. Observation is the basis of all learning.
The natural rewilding option is a win win
Low cost, low intervention, better biodiversity and less side effects
And it's much faster than people think. Forests can do a lot of their regeneration in just 20 years, though they take up to a hundred years to recover fully.
We just need the land back from the animal agriculture industry!!
mmm no, it's a big mistake to blame animal industry because industrial beef is made in tight spaces, not in farmlands. And it's also a big mistake that also natural woods are the best option, grasslands needs to be restored, and they sequester more carbon in soil than forests in soil and wood. And the only way to regenerate grasslands is with animals, whether it might be bisons or other rustic animals like water buffalo or even cattle, using regenerative grazing. By far, the agriculture uses more land and destroy more. And there is also silviculture, where they use trees and grazing and this regenerate soils, so, no, animals are not the problem they can be used to regenerate landscapes much, much faster than when letting nature alone, there have been many successful projects around the world.
@@codniggh1139
Animal Ag uses over 80% of land and produces less than 20% of our food.
Please go read Poore et al 2018. If everyone at a plant-based diet, we could reduce the amount of land we use by 3/4 - an area 3x the size of the USA. Fir the average person living in the global north, the biggest thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint and your impact on the environment is stop eating meat.
I can quote you chapter and verse on the studies here. Also read Clarke et al 2020. There is no way to get to a stable climate without a dramatic reduction in animal Ag.
@@codniggh1139 Where is the food that feeds industrial cattle grown, I wonder? Regenerative grazing will certainly play a role in solving the climate crisis, but the cutting down of rain forests to plant soy and other grain for factory cattle will need to end. And that, of course, means eating less beef.
@@martinhoffmann1063 that's totally false, it's a myth that all that soy goes to cattle and all those grains. There is an excessive and artificial supply because subdisidies, that you have even corn being used for ethanol. Then you have a very big industry of soy products that are not edible, and btw we can use all those parts of the plants that we can't eat, cow can eat it or other animals and you will have all that demand covered, but obviously they don't use that. Reality is that most of that grains are for humans not cattle.
Its not that easy. The fastest growing species of animals and plants would end up dominatting almost every ecossystem
The massive tree planting program in China has been helpful. They were historically forestlands cleared and turned barren and scrubby. Tree planting was needed to prevent erosion. If left to regeneration. It would have just been shrubs. Now the nation has a timber reserve or can let it be to develop into a natural forest over time.
Thanks for this take on an interesting topic.
Observing how nature develops a stretch of open soil there's a rather specific order in which things start to grow. Grasses and herbs in the first year, as they start covering the soil in a protective layer of biological material. Then faster growing tree species and shrubs transcend this base layer. Willow, birch, hawthorn where I live.
The more biological material is added to the future forest floor, and the more shade is cast, the better its capacity to store moisture. A stable moisture content creates en environment in which a healthy microbal world and fungal network can grow. This network supports longer living species like oak and beech, forming a resilient community better able to cope with drought, pests and disease.
Considering these observations I'm curious if the best way of "starting" a forest might not simply be putting baby trees into the ground but more so laying the foundations on which a future forest can build itself. To add, grasses, herbs, seeds and time. To start the proces, or system that is a forest.
Considering that basically every scrap of land in the UK, where i live, has moisture and grass etc, particularly where the tree are planted, the first step you describe is there. Here, it only took and few years for willows and birch to establish themselves on a new bit of land, and most recently, a baby oak, from a Jay's acorn. Rather than only letting things come in naturally, which will be slower, we can jumpstart the process. The environment and ecology shifts much faster.
Just letting all trees grow back wont work as we have seen what happened in iceland we just need to plant native trees and trees that have high biodiversity
Fantastic video. I'm a horticulturist in Bentonville, AR, wish more people spent time to learn more about how nature actually works. Our world is so disconnected from it, and yet we depend on it so much.
Of course.
Planting the " right tree in the right place" in urban areas is immensely difficult. And ironically even when you succeed, they're then poorly - protected by the UK planning system.
So stopping clearcut logging is more important than actual reforestation efforts, AKA tree planting is what I got from this vid. As a priority, yes, but only really in as far as giving point to forest restoring efforts. I can only see clearcut logging ending if it benefited people local to those forests. So switching it off for selection logging that doesn't highgrade, so to protect relative old growth & to maintain canopy to restore nature's inland hydrology, particularly in the lead up to slopes & the treed slopes themselves so the transpiration piles up overhead into rainclouds that wont overwhelm into floods, but only gently, slower. Slow can do it: restore fertility. Also, dilution is the solution to pollution, as often said. Forests make fresh water in abundance without flooding. Didn't Biden say he would get to zero by 2050. There's no better way but for Canada & the US to make this a pact over the Columbia Basin Treaty talks. Please folks, advocate for this. This way both Canada & US citizens benefit from this greatly. Forests stabilize the climate...
I would like to say, overall clearcutting is better than selection forestry, when done through the regulations already set in place. Selection forestry has much higher rates of compaction, erosion, and stream sedimentation which damages site quality immensely. Also, modern day clear-cuts do not clear every single tree from a site, streams and waterways are heavily protected, "snags" which are dead trees important for many wildlife are protected, and modern practice works extremely hard to prevent the negative effects associated with logging.
Every state in the United States has BMPs (Best Management Practices), in some states they are mandatory and some they are not, but in the ones where they are not mandatory they still undergo constant inspect and if they fall behind they will loose their certification (SFI, SFC, etc.) if an area looses it's certification it is almost impossible to sell the timber that comes from it.
Yes, there are ways we can improve forestry here in the United States, issues like monoculture planting are very real, but what I can say, as someone who has almost completed my degree in forestry is that we are working diligently to ensure the sustainability and longevity of our forests.
Monoculture is terrible, whether it’s a green grass lawn without any other plants or flowers or huge plantations of eucalypts.
Its a terrible thing that we need btw
It's a crop to harvest and has it's place.
My favorite past time recently is to watch people bike around Dutch cities. I can't tell you how much refreshing it is for me to see a compact urban setting with that much trees.
Interesting. On TH-cam or in real live?
This is super important especially as big polluters seek to pave the way for their continued bad behavior through offsets. I wish you had covered the importance of local genetics and provincial seed zones. But that is probably another video all to itself, and with a much less sexy title.
Accountable offsets, there has been offset schemes that turned out to be scams that just made things worse but but look carbon neutral or negative just on paper.
I manage timberland in southern arkansas and I’ve always loved natural regen. Best way to grow trees with zero upfront cost and support biodiversity
This video was spot on. Thanks for getting the word out on this vital subject.
A number of plantations in the UK mix larch with spruce and others. Its unreasonable to expect a diverse ecosystem in timber plantations when they are there to provide a renewable source of timber, protecting old growth forests elsewhere from logging. The more efficient they are, the more effective they are at protecting other areas.
I remember seeing about 50 years ago an area of Scotland where they were regenerating forest merely by fencing of land to exclude grazing animals.
Yes, I know a few spots where this was very effectively done in Scotland. But it's not a large scale answer for much of the northwest of the country because vast areas have been entirely deforested over centuries - there aren't the 'granny trees' to provide the seed.
I am from small town which is 550 km away from Mumbai, India....In our area govt started experiment of Miyawaki forest comprising local trees only on small pieces of land...and now after 5 years we see these forests have grown around 25 - 30 feet...Surprusingly survival rate is 85- 90% which is way above normal one of 30 - 40 %..
Isha Foundation , with the help of it's lakhs of followers , in the south India has planted millions of fruit trees, Teak wood trees throughout Tamilnadu and most of the trees have grown up quite well....
A very famous Bollywood actor Amirkhan , his wife Kiran Rai started a NGO Paani Foundation ( Paani means water) ..This foundation implemented a Watershed project throughout Maharashtra state..Many videos r Available on TH-cam
A short video which barely scratches the surface of tree planting and right tree, right place. This just highlights the negatives of the wrong practice rather than the positives from some large scale planting.
Please actually put the link in the description
Thanks for the video - we're weekly subscribers.
Apart from anything else there is a huge difference between tree planting and tree growing!
I've been a tree planter and the industry is destructive in many ways, the non native pines are often treated with pesticides and planted with fertiliser. All of which damage the ecosystem and absorb through the soil into the water. Once the trees are planted every year they are sprayed with a ring of Monsanto's Roundup which kills frogs, toads and everything in its path it also never escapes the food chain once the chemical has passed through prey to predator etc. On the otherside every time we plant pines we plant native hardwoods such as oak, alder, birch etc but this isn't enough. Now we have left the EU, regulations will change and not for the benefit of the environment but for the economy. A lot of harmful agro chemicals are banned under EU regulations but legal in the US market etc we will see a lot more of these harmful chemicals sprayed on our lands as big companies move in for the contracts. Forestry can be a sustainable industry it's just run by backwards people. many new planters I see have great ideas of how you could easily manage land and profit off the timber but still maintain a balanced ecosystem.
Just like when it comes to health, people are given a quick easy choice ( pill) and told that the problem will go away. The people that make the mess probably aren't the one to fix the problem.
I do like the idea of natural forest regeneration and allowing forests to expand but then I also think about how so many of our forests, especially ones near urban or industrial areas, are severely disturbed, struggling and resource depleted. It can't just be allowing those forests to expand, there must be an increased focus on learning and practicing how to revitalize the forests we have. A lot of this comes from indigenous knowledge. Additionally, the invasive tree/shrub removal process can be really intensive and would be a larger and longer term project.
that is the single best piece of explanation on afforestation strategies that I`ve seen in 15 years
I'm sure there are some valid and important points in this video, but it would be nice to see some supporting data. Anyone can say "diverse ecosystems secure the most carbon", but what evidence is that claim based on? How much more carbon can they secure? Are monoculture forests still better than doing nothing? Expect better from The Guardian.
More biodiversity allows for more resources to be used by different organisms in an ecosystem, which increases productivity (like sequestration of carbon by plants)
@@VinisVideoVault That's hypothesis, not evidence. I'm not saying that particular statement is wrong by the way. Just that journalists aught to support their claims with evidence, just like scientists are expected to do.
Liu, X. et al. (2018) Tree species richness increases ecosystem carbon storage in subtropical forests, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, doi/10.1098/rspb.2018.1240
About a six percent increase in carbon capture per species added. Also the maturity of a tree his a positive effect (in a nutshell)
In the Pacific Northwest the natural course of regeneration typically involves a flush of berries and shrubs followed by growth of alder which is quick growing as well as having relatively high numbers for carbon sequestration__. Instead common practice is to choke back the alder and plant whatever species is getting highest market value in bulk (in other words replace with a monoculture of whatever they want to log. In the first 20 (less?) years the monoculture will have greened up enough that it will have shaded out all of the understory, creating a virtual desert beneath the canopy. this will be the case for the next 200 year give or take, at which time the forest will be entering what is called structural stage six, where some trees are dieting allowing some openings in the canopy and some new growth on the forest floor. You can cite me on that ;)
Why are you not talking about the #1 driver of deforestation, the livestock industry?
A bit like talking to us about why recycling doesn't work without talking about the plastic makers
This entire video could really be taken out of context, especially if in the hands of some of these climate change deniers who might point out that fixing local ecosystems is not beneficial with a poorly run government. The implications are really worrying, we should always try to fix local ecosystems and plant more trees even if it has a slight warming effect today on the climate because in the future, those trees will help remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Its up to the government to reduce the reflection of solar waves with proper planting of trees/shrubs/shading etc, not the people's responsibility. I really wish this video was more about how government oversite can fail during forestry projects rather than greater biodiversity can lead to global warming....
Why take it as the government’s responsibility? Even the best governance can never understand the complexity of ecosystems. Apart from street planting and establishing national parks etc. forests need to be allowed to recover on their own. Even if you plant all the right species and sparsely, having trees of the same age is detrimental. They’re not going to come back and plant a few trees every 15 years, cause in that time a forest will have started reestablishing itself anyway. Nature knows itself best let’s just stop messing with it.
@@Freshbott2 Having trees of the same age is not detrimental in a diverse forest. Trees all have different lifecycles and belong to different layers of the forest. Humans can vastly accelerate the natural regeneration process by pruning fast growing, short-lived trees, to build soil and give light to later stage species growing underneath.
@@wildforestorganics7298 yeah so that involves continually returning and having to maintain things over time. Trees of the same age are *absolutely* detrimental because it prevents niches and stratification. The whole point from a commercial forestry perspective in planting trees together in a single stage is to prevent exactly that and make everything uniform.
This "climate change denier" knows more about climate science then you do.
What an excellent & eye-opening piece...thanks Guardian!
Another important thing to add is that the older a tree is the more carbon it absorbs!
Currently big forestry companies are trying to spread the opposite belief to justify their doings. In New Zealand for example you can clear plots of native Bush if you establish a pine forest monoculture afterwards. They will always try to twist the truth around to seem like environmentalists.
Thank you for this important video.
Do you have a source for this?
It’s odd that most people don’t know what planting native means. It’s frustrating.
Re establishing ecosystems is pretty hard and gonna take time but we can do it!
Can you share the link referenced at the end please? 🌳👍
They're in the description. Apologies for leaving them out at first.
Yes, planting in urban areas. I have planted 6 trees in my front yard and 3 more trees in my backyard. Wish all my neighbors will do the same.
the whole comedy of life unfolds in and around such trees, one may then consider oneself truly a "man of culture"
In my region government planted trees along the main road but after a few years they were cut down by people for infrastructure like hotels shops etc so that money and those trees just got wasted .
natural forest regeneration takes a lot of time, you can plant natural forests but it takes a little more than "bare minimum" of effort and knowledge to know what to plant, and to take care of it for a year while it sets up.
People are always after quick, simple fixes, rather than long-term sustainability. This is especially true with people who think that they can be absolved of their environmental sins through the purchase of the “indulgence” of corporate mono-culture tree planting.
“Fast growing,” “deer resistant” and other advertising euphemisms cover up the fact that certain species are invasive destroyers of needed biodiversity.
Geoff Lawton’s Permaculture efforts have made use of certain trees with invasive characteristics as pioneer species to recover from previous land abuses. Those trees like acacias have deep roots that break up compacted soils, harbor nitrogen fixing bacteria, and grow rapidly to produce organic matter to improve the soil.
After these goals have been accomplished the acacias are then converted to mulches for the benefit of successional plantings. This requires continued management; you can’t just plant trees, say “problem solved” and then walk away. Bradford Pears, Russian Olives, and Tamarisk, are all species that have ended up causing more problems than they solved.
the key is multidisciplinary as mentioned in the video, but we have to protect forests and plant agroforests that produce food in the tropics and do not have the negative points of monoculture
Agroforestry and permaculture principles need to be adopted yesterday. Two birds with one stone, sequestering carbon while phasing out damaging traditional agriculture is certainly what we need to be doing.
Ecosia plants native trees in developing countries with their profits
Thank you for bringing to light some of these problems. I have an invasive tree problem on my property with trees that came from the UK and the UK has an invasive tree problem with trees that came from North America. Stick with the native trees and only make adjustments for climate change.
Do some research, most forests planted are FSC and UKWAS certified. There for monocultures are not allowed.
There's a very unique relationship the Alder tree has with the bacterium Frankia. They both form a symbiosis to aid in nitrogen fixation, remarkably Frankia is free-living meaning it doesn't even require the relationship with the tree!
Broadleaf forests and well established woods hold more diversity than any other ecosystems other than the tropics. Unbelievable amount of knowledge in the old root systems.
We need to make better connection to the earth. Mycorrhizal fungi for example is a root fungus and is fantastic in harnessing more nutrients for plants and trees and in return receiving the sugary goods from photosynthetic sugars. Keep your minds wide open people. Now's the time
It's a bit more complicated. Plantation forests can be used for wood, paper etc while still sequestering carbon so the land can continue to make money instead of being permanently returned to wilderness (which is great for biodiversity but very expensive). Plantation forests usually use monocultures of exotic trees because they grow faster and are easier to harvest.
Exactly. This restores natural local water buffer and transpiration water cycle. Sequesters carbon and is superior to conventional farming, such as dairy
and the lumber they produce now is VASTLY inferior to wood from a few decades ago..most people haven't noticed, though..
It is indeed important to understand the right geographical areas, species and climate to even plant a tree, with climate change on rise there are many people with no knowledge on forest management and planting wrong trees are very dangerous, we agree 100%.
We will go ahead to add this in our planet cents playlist to inspire more people. ~Team PlanetCents
It's also nice to talk about agroforestry like those being done here in Brazil with ernet and others like CEPEAS in cerrado
Even if each person on earth plants 1 tree, scientists say it takes decades for it to become a significance carbon sink. What’s needed first and foremost is reduction of GHGs (CO2 and CH4). Fossil fuels and their political lobbying, the US military, and all the investments given to fossil fuel corporations. Also we need a halt in the cattle industry.
This is very educational, thank you
Yes we love trees
it's simple - the people in charge don't understand that there is more than one type of tree, or that a wood is simply a bunch of trees bunched together. They literally can't see the wood for the trees.
Everyone here dont worry about team trees they dont plant monoculteres and just letting trees grow back wont work as fast or at all please make sure to still plant forests but the right way and the right place not just in urban environments
You need a whole symphony of plants that all work with each other.
Spot on , very well explained.
Best way to plant trees is to get a fence... Put it up. Cover the grass with cardboard and then woodchips. That is how you make a "forest floor" or its equivalent.
Then you really can just wait until nature plants trees there for you.
This is my experience as a gardener.
Here in Brazil the Eucalyptus from Australia and the Pine Tree of North America are destroying the local enviroment
Follow the Dutch and French: Go all-in on NPPs. PV cells and wind turbines are purely performative when you look at how much energy they provide and how reliably they do so etc.
Finally I see something like this. I am against monocultures and here in Germany that seems to be the rule. They blame the climate change for the diseases but it is quite obvious that it is due to low biodiversity
Trees go through a process called respiration, in which they absorb the carbon dioxide from the air, convert it into mass or energy, and then release through it roots, into the soil and back into the atmosphere. Young trees release more carbon dioxide than they absorb, so for the first 20 years of its life, it's a net positive source of carbon. Like was said in the video, we need to preserve the forests we already have.
Rebuilding what was destroyed is going to be a lot harder and more expensive than preserving what we had.
Thats crazy they would give more to plant trees than look after the existing trees. It takes a very long time for a tree to actually start removing carbon dioxide and storing it, unless a tree reaches well into maturity it will have a negative impact. Some arboriculturalists say if we take better care of all the trees we have, we will offset more carbon than planting millions of trees, especially after some very dry summers there are huge swathes of young dead trees around many highways developments.
I tend to like the balanced approaches.
cut less and no clearcuting.
Thanks for this take on an interesting topic.
Love trees. Forests are important to fight climate change. But this video is still really important. Right tree, right place, right time.
Best work done....very nice
Wow thank you so much 💗 for this video
We lack nuance. Restore native habitat. You can do that in your yard. Don't rake the leaves in your backyard, that's an easy start.
A conservation biologist we have this argument all the time. The “it depends” and well it will always depend on how is this going to be affective down the line towards climate change and biodiversity
Great initiative. This video is helpful.
We have been plantings trees for last two years on waste lands and their survival is only 20percent. Will definitely do better after adopting this plantation strategy. 💯
As a forester I'm really glad people are talking about this but also facepalming so hard at just how oversimplified this video was. There is truth to a lot of what he says but it's not as cut and dry as even he tried to make it seem. I guess that's why people go to years for forestry... but please always remeber that the best tool for conservation is a chainsaw whether you believe it or not.
First forests on earth, paleozoic, 400 million years ago.
First chainsaw, 19th century
Forests seem to be doing fine without our "help".
Trees do have a lower albedo.. but wouldn’t the canopy absorb that heat and keep the surface cooler?
What i get from this video is that we should change all our forest to deserts so we can reflect more heat into the atmosphere
Bro thats the worst possible thing to do the planet will become like venus and theres no returning. They just saying to help regenrate the forests that are already here and plant the same trees that belong to that area. If earth was stripped of trees thats the end of this planet
I really appreciated this video, thank you -
Where I live the forest is essentially around 90% scots pines. 9 % is larch. Everything else (spruce, fir, birch, aspen, etc) is 1%.
Thanks 👍
I dont believe that a forest makes a place Hotter, this was proven by the french they chopped down most of teh forests in lower quebec and the climate got warmer
Thanks!
Many of these areas were deforested centuries ago, eroding the topsoil. The thermal reflection argument likely pales relative to restoring the ecosystem where it had previously eroded away
Excellent video
0:37 i think we doesn't reach at that level to say tree plantation is a problem
REWILD on a large scale, it's that easy
A very important video❣️
I am very interested in the data you hold to underpin the assertion that monoculture commercial conifers are worse at storing carbon? (In the UK). If you read Matthews et al 2020 ‘seeing to carbon for the trees’ then perhaps you’re view would change… the timescale of your delivery of mitigation benefit is also key
All nicely said and a big consideration for the future of forestry in the UK and internationally. However I wonder how much importing timber which again requires huge logistical solutions which add to the carbon issue. If we no longer have large scale timber markets in the UK, how will that effect construction costs, paper Mills etc. More deforestation in extremely biodiverse primary forests to supply demand???
Also sheep farming in Wales, how much revenue and employment does that actually create? Is large scale grazing any more sustainable than large scale planting? Seems unlikely.
Soo important!
This is absolutely ridiculous. Here I was thinking that tree planting was one of the most purest forms of work one could do. I'd still think that till I realized that it's all about future timber investments.
Yes. Often it is part of the liscencees green light to cut old growth that they have “replaced” it
Excellent video!