In class we discussed the concept that planting trillions of trees may not be as positive as we thought. In an article written by Benji Jones in VOX, this exact concept is brought up. Jones begins his article by saying that 11 million trees were planted in Turkey in 2019, which set a world record for the most saplings planted in one hour in a single location. And after three months, 90% of the saplings were dead (Jones). This idea has been done lots in the past years with people going out and planting trees in areas to combat paper usage, maybe not to the scale of Turkey, but still it has been a common practice.
Researchers have found no evidence that tree-planting campaigns have worked and are seen to have high failure rates. The reason a lot of these saplings die is because the planters do not pick quality habitats for planting. There’s also the chance that animals can destroy the saplings when planting in former grazing lands. Jones goes on to write that a failure in tree planting is not just a failure, it can harm the ecosystems. There have been reports of tree planting campaigns that have cleared parts of existing forests in order to make room for saplings to go into the ground, and also reports that large tree planting efforts have degraded grassland ecosystems (Jones). Even though the effects of tree planting initiatives are so negative, these efforts are still being put in place to try and help the environment.
In high school, I was a part of a club called the Environmental Club. We did a lot around the school like implementing recycling bins inside each classroom and workroom, made sure the right things were being recycled, and tried our hardest to make sure it was all going to the right location after pick up. We held fundraisers at local restaurants and businesses and even started a program where we went around and planted trees for people who ordered them. This program was put in place in a way for people around my community to purchase saplings and have them planted in their yard, a park, or anywhere they wanted. We had a ton of people send in orders and this event had to take place over a span of a couple days to get done. We sent members from the club out to addresses and parks to plant and everyone was happy. The program was a success. However, now that I look back after reading this article, maybe it wasn’t.
I think that the club made the same mistake that a lot of others have made regarding planting trees, we did not make sure the areas we were planting in were good, we did not check back in on the trees after a while to help them, and we did not take into affect the harm we could have possibly done to the ecosystem. While we may have made a mistake, I know now how to properly go about a tree growing campaign.
A quote from the article that stood out to me was one from Lalisa Duguma, a climate scientist. She said, “We should stop thinking about only tree planting, it has to be tree growing.” What she means is that there is more to reforestation than just planting trees. There is long term surveillance, commitment of resources, and monitoring each and every sapling. Reforestation is not easy, and when companies, clubs, or individuals try and make it easy, it’s not just a failure, it’s a harm.