ONLINE CURRENTS VOL3 - Flipbook - Page 44
case. Given limited funding, policymakers have to decide between income-generating
projects, like fruit tree and timber farms in developing regions, or more ecologically valuable
projects, such as protected natural parks.
Reforestation cannot replace conservation of existing woodland
9
The WEF’s Trillion Trees project was catalyzed by a remarkable new scientific analysis, which
concluded that global ecosystems are capable of supporting another 0.9 billion hectares of
forest. These new trees could collectively capture up to 205 gigatonnes of carbon—equal to
approximately one-third of all emissions caused by human activities thus far in history. There
is a catch, though—it would take up to a century for this to happen. This brings us to one of the
biggest drawbacks of tree planting as a carbon reduction strategy: we simply do not have
enough time to wait.
Planting new trees is an investment in the future; they mature slowly, and as a result the
benefits they provide in terms of carbon storage are necessarily delayed rewards. In the
meantime, the world’s natural forests and wildernesses are being destroyed at an alarming
rate.
Cutting down existing trees releases the stored carbon they contain back into the atmosphere
—a process that directly contributes to global warming. In fact, 12% of all greenhouse gas
emissions can be directly linked back to deforestation, which is primarily driven by the
expansion of extractive industries like timber logging, cattle ranching and mining. If this
10
destruction
continues at its current pace, tropical rainforests will disappear completely in less
than a century. Failing to reverse this trend will entirely discount the effects of global treeplanting schemes.
Reframing perspectives on value
It’s clear that conserving and expanding forests will require us to define their merits beyond
basic economic output. Academics and activists have caught on to the phrase “biocultural
diversity” 11 to describe those less tangible forms of value that we inherently grasp but cannot
always describe. Dr. Ken Wilson is a long-term researcher who previously worked at the
University of Oxford and has since served as director of the Christensen Fund, an NGO that
works to disseminate indigenous ecological knowledge. His definition of biocultural diversity
highlights its centrality to maintaining a sustainable relationship with our environment.
44
