Trees directly remove greenhouse gas emissions from the air. A mature tree can absorb on average 22kg of carbon dioxide each year, using photosynthesis to turn it into wood, leaves, bark, and roots. 

It’s tempting to try to solve the climate emergency by planting billions of trees. But massive tree planting can cause problems. It can reduce people’s ability to thrive, affect livelihoods and desecrate sacred spaces if it involves unjustly taking control of land. Planting concentrations of single species can reduce the ability of ecosystems to cope with change, since single species tend to be vulnerable to pests and disease.

As with so many practices, being strategic is key. We can avoid planting trees where other land uses are better suited to the area. We can mix trees with farm crops or plant in pastures. We can plant a variety of native trees instead of a single species. Tree planting in the right place, under the right circumstances, can be a strong contribution to tackling the climate emergency.

When you take this action, remove 1 Social Resilience token from your player board, then add 2 Tree tokens to the board.
You may take this action once per round.
You may not take this action if you do not have any Social Resilience tokens on your player board to discard.

• Tree Plantations on Degraded Land (Project Drawdown)

• Tree Intercropping (Project Drawdown)

• Multistrata Agroforestry (Project Drawdown)

• 📄The Global Tree Restoration Potential by J.-F. Bastin, Y. Finegold, C. Garcia, D. Mollicone, M. Rezende, D. Routh, C. M. Zohner, T. W. Crowther

• Plant native trees and other species in your community.

• Encourage your city or town to plant native trees, rewild unused spaces and have ‘no mow’ seasons to help pollinators thrive.

• When buying wood products, select those made from accredited sustainably grown trees.