Tree planting is capturing the minds of those who look for fast climate action. Earlier this month, the Ethiopian Government announced a new world record: thousands of volunteers planted 353 million trees in one single day. This came shortly after a team of scientists identified suitable places in the world where up to 1 trillion new trees could be planted. Such a massive effort could absorb about 20 years’ worth of global greenhouse gas emissions.
And on 8 August 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change launched a Special Report on the importance of land use for the climate. About 23 per cent of all emissions come from the agriculture, land use and forest sector. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change outlines land management opportunities with benefits for food security, biodiversity, and the climate, such as agroforestry.
The growing enthusiasm for forests and trees is a good thing. Ecosystem restoration will be critical in turning the tide against climate change, and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. But we need to be mindful of some pitfalls lurking along the way. We have learned valuable lessons over the past decades in afforestation and other restoration projects across dozens of countries. A few basic principles outlined by the Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration can help us to reduce costs and minimize future risk as the world embraces the need to plant more trees.
Stop the bleeding
The first rule for ecosystem restoration is to stop the further destruction of forests, wetlands, and other critical ‘green infrastructure’. Conserving natural habitats is always cheaper than restoring it later.
Most new trees do not need to be planted
Most ecosystems in the world have remnant seeds in the soil and natural regrowth can be cheaper and more successful than tree planting. The most cost-effective type of restoration is to work with the forces of nature. For example, across the Sahel, a successful and fast landscape restoration technique is called ‘farmer-managed natural regeneration’. It uses the existence of remnant root stocks below the surface, where the trees above ground have disappeared long ago. Farmers nurture those roots and trees back to life. The results are stunning—within a few years, large trees dot the surface of the once barren and dry savannah, bringing back water, productivity and life.
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