#tree planting

[steadynightruins]

The Artemis II crew planting a tree sapling grown from a seed that was flown around the Moon during the Artemis I mission

[reasonsforhope]

Century of Tree Planting Stalls the Warming Effects in the Eastern United States, Says Study

By the 1930s, forest cover loss in the eastern states like the Carolinas and Mississippi had stopped, and massive reforestation took place.

"A century of gradual reforestation across the American East and Southeast has kept the region cooler than it otherwise would have become, a new study shows.

The pioneering study of progress shows how the last 25 years of accelerated reforestation around the world might significantly pay off in the second half of the 21st century.

Using a variety of calculative methods and estimations based on satellite and temperature data from weather stations, the authors determined that forests in the eastern United States cool the land surface by 1.8 – 3.6°F annually compared to nearby grasslands and croplands, with the strongest effect seen in summer, when cooling amounts to 3.6 – 9°F.

The younger the forest, the more this cooling effect was detected, with forest trees between 20 and 40 years old offering the coolest temperatures underneath.

“The reforestation has been remarkable and we have shown this has translated into the surrounding air temperature,” Mallory Barnes, an environmental scientist at Indiana University who led the research, told The Guardian.

“Moving forward, we need to think about tree planting not just as a way to absorb carbon dioxide but also the cooling effects in adapting for climate change, to help cities be resilient against these very hot temperatures.”

The cooling of the land surface affected the air near ground level as well, with a stepwise reduction in heat linked to reductions in near-surface air temps.

“Analyses of historical land cover and air temperature trends showed that the cooling benefits of reforestation extend across the landscape,” the authors write. “Locations surrounded by reforestation were up to 1.8°F cooler than neighboring locations that did not undergo land cover change, and areas dominated by regrowing forests were associated with cooling temperature trends in much of the Eastern United States.”

By the 1930s, forest cover loss in the eastern states like the Carolinas and Mississippi had stopped, as the descendants of European settlers moved in greater and greater numbers into cities and marginal agricultural land was abandoned.

The Civilian Conservation Corps undertook large replanting efforts of forests that had been cleared, and this is believed to be what is causing the lower average temperatures observed in the study data.

However, the authors note that other causes, like more sophisticated crop irrigation and increases in airborne pollutants that block incoming sunlight, may have also contributed to the lowering of temperatures over time. They also note that tree planting might not always produce this effect, such as in the boreal zone where increases in trees are linked with increases in humidity that way raise average temperatures."

-via Good News Network, February 20, 2024

[toyastales]

Modern Landscape Design

[hope-for-the-planet]

Bringing back the birds: the ‘ghost woodlands’ transforming England’s barren sheep fells

A groundbreaking tree-planting programme is uniting farmers and rewilders, as portions of common ground in the Yorkshire Dales national park

From the article:

The Howgill Fells are a smooth, treeless cluster of hills in the Yorkshire Dales national park, so bald and lumpy that they are sometimes described as a herd of sleeping elephants. Their bare appearance – stark even by UK standards – has been shaped by centuries of sheep grazing. Yet beneath the soil lie ancient tree roots: the silent traces of long-lost “ghost woodlands”. Now, these woodlands are being encouraged to grow again. Over the past 12 years, 300,000 native trees have been planted across these hills in sheep-free enclosures. The results are beginning to be seen: birds and flowers are returning. Birdsong ripples through the valley as first light spills over a ridge line and on to 26 hectares (64 acres) of fenced-off land near Tebay village. Meadow pipits, reed buntings and stonechats are among the choristers. A flush of cotton grass bobs in the morning breeze and a stonechat fledgling clings to a spindly branch, shrieking for a parent. Big rewilding projects often happen on private land with limited public access. These enclosures are a result of agreements reached between dozens of farmers on common land with public access. “Doing so much tree-planting on a common was groundbreaking,” says Peter Leeson from the Woodland Trust. “People hadn’t been doing this in the uplands before at this scale.” Bluebells are popping up and there are patches of bracken, which suggest the soils and seed banks retain the memory of being a woodland despite hundreds of years of sheep grazing. “We call these memories ‘ghost woodlands’,” says Leeson. These ancient woodland indicators could offer a blueprint of where trees should return. Each year, Douglas is finding more breeding birds moving in. Last year, there were 14 breeding species here. Before the enclosure was created, he says, just four would have been found: meadow pipit, skylarks, wren and grey wagtails. Eleven new breeding bird species have been recorded since the original 2016 survey, with numbers increasing year-on-year. “I’m surprised by how quickly birds have colonised, and the diversity of species,” says Douglas.

[philippinewildlifeart]

Not only must we conserve what remaining forests we have. We must also help nature bring back the forests we have lost. They are our natural flood control and climate control, water sources and purifiers, and yet so much more. And only when using trees native and adapted to the habitats we bring back, managed by people who live in or near these areas, planted and supported by everyone in the country, will this be most effective.

[unidentifiablelifeform]

Nearly a third of Syria's forests destroyed by war, fires, and poverty. Environmental damage becomes political flashpoint in transitional go

Syria’s Reforestation Campaigns: Can They Repair the War-Torn Landscape?

Reforestation campaigns have emerged as a central feature of Syria’s environmental response, representing one of the most prominent local ef

[giannislefkos]