Billions of trees are felled each year, according to the Rainforest Action Network, and tree planting requires more time and effort than cutting down. This means that maintaining deforestation standards is challenging for conservationists. The minds behind one technical start believe that they can accelerate global tree planting efforts by taking the burden off people and putting it on drones.
BioCarbon Engineering has assembled a collection of drones thousands of trees per day, as Fast company reports. The company will soon focus its efforts on the Myrawmar Irrawaddy River delta, an area that has rapidly lost its mangrove trees as a result of aquaculture, agriculture and logging. Estimates put the number of regional mangroves destroyed in the last 30 years by between 75 and 83 percent. Starting in September, BioCarbon will partner with the Worldview International Foundation to help with hands-on reform efforts.
Dispersing seeds from planes (such as helicopters) is not a new strategy. These methods are valued for their speed, but there are chances that trees will be injured in the process. To provide an effective method of seed-free planting, BioCarbon had to innovate.
After the company maps a plot of land from above and examines the best spots for planting, their drones fly low to the ground and shoot nutrient-rich seed pods into the soil. In this way, more seeds end up in places where they thrive than on rocks or in streams where they go to waste.
With one human pilot for every six drones, the company will be able to get 100,000 pods in the ground every day. Even in places with regulations restricting pilots to one drone at a time, the vehicles are 10 times faster and half as expensive as human labor. The Worldview International Foundation, which has worked with the delra Irrawaddy community to plant 750 hectares of trees to date, hopes to expand that area by 250 hectares with the help of BioCarbon Engineering. The team also plans to continue to recruit locals to collect and cultivate seed pods.
For a closer look at their planting process, check out the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcJ7vLwtSIM
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[h/t Fast Company]