Forest Restoration
Local Project
Forests are home to unknowably complex systems of animals, bacteria, fungi and more. They also store a lot of greenhouse gas emissions: trees and their roots are 50% carbon, and forest soils store greenhouse gasses .
Preserving existing forests, and letting them expand, is always the best strategy for protecting these irreplaceable ecosystems. But restoration is important, too. Restoring forests can enrich ecosystems and enable them to flourish, providing clean water, clean air, habitat for endangered species and much more. Restoring the hundreds of millions of hectares of forest around the world that have been damaged or destroyed would absorb a huge volume of greenhouse emissions from the atmosphere.
One way to restore forests is to plant new trees. But if we stop disturbing the land, trees and other living things will naturally fill the space.
Restoring forests can create changes for people who had started working on the land for other purposes - like farming. New jobs and opportunities will be available protecting, monitoring and preserving the new forests, and government subsidies can help stimulate this change of purpose. But it’s important that efforts to restore forests include legal protections that ensure that the new forests are preserved long-term, rather than converted to another use.
When you take this action, add 1 Tree token to the board.
You may take this action once per round.
EcologyTemperate Forest Restoration (Project Drawdown)
Tropical Forest Restoration (Project Drawdown)
Restoring soils could remove up to ‘5.5bn tonnes’ of greenhouse gasses every year (Carbon Brief)
If you own land that was once forested, return it to its former state, and open it to the local community to steward.
Volunteer with a reforestation, invasive species removal, or habitat restoration project.
Put pressure on companies whose products you buy or stock you invest in to support forest restoration and protection of restored forests, and to publish information about whether their supply chain is implicated in deforestation.
