Reforest the Planet
Deforestation contributes to global warming
Deforestation releases the carbon stored within the trees adding to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It also reduces our planets capacity to draw down carbon dioxide making it harder for us to fix climate change. It is estimated that humans have cut down 46% of global forests since we started cultivating land. We are losing global forests at alarming rates, mainly in the developing world, where tropical rainforests are being cleared for agriculture.
Unfortunately Australia is in the global top-ten countries for deforestation, most of this occurring in Queensland and N.S.W. We have cleared 25% of our rainforest, 45% of our open forest, 32% of our woodland forest and 30% of our mallee forest in the last 200 years.
Deforestation means a loss of biodiversity
Our current era, the Anthropocene, is a time of mass extinction with species loss being greater at this time than any other in recorded history. This has far reaching ramifications for human health. The most obvious example is the increase risk of zoonoses (e.g. Covid-19) but was are also losing the medicinal plants that forests provide.
Biodiversity is a protective factor for the health of the planet and as we continue to cut down trees we threaten our planets resistance and risk ecosystem collapse.
Deforestation means water insecurity.
It causes increased salinity and increased runoff, polluting our rivers and causing a loss of groundwater. This leaves the land more vulnerable to fire. We must stop cutting down the trees.
Reforestation is the most effective solution we have to combat global warming.
Large scale global reforestation is the cheapest, quickest and most effective tool we have to fight climate change. The World Economic Forum released its 1t.org project in Jan 2020 which aims to unite governments, NGOs, businesses and individuals to ensure 1 trillion trees in a mass-scale nature restoration project. This would allow us to lock-in about 1/3rd of the carbon needed to reach the Paris agreement.
We have the land available for replanting without this impinging on our farmland or urban landscapes and Australia has been identified as a country that could contribute much to the global effort in this area.
Using plants indigenous to the region will also improve biodiversity and water security.
PERSONAL ACTIONS:
We can all help global reforestation. In Australia there are many tree planting groups that you can be involved with including Trees for Life, Trillion Trees and the Carbon Neutral Charitable Fund. The more trees we have, the more carbon is captured and the better our odds to prevent global environmental catastrophe.
references:
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-climate-trillion-trees.html
https://www.wilderness.org.au/news-events/10-facts-about-deforestation-in-australia