Forest is responsible for the livelihoods and the best tool for nature or climate change. Trees give us shade, absorb and store carbon dioxide, recycle water, and provide habitat for other plants and animals. Well, many initiatives have been taken to regain a good climate like the trillion trees initiative believes planting forests will automatically help to rebalance the Earth’s climate.
As plants naturally absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen as part of their photosynthesis process, and oxygen is essential for all living organisms on the planet. But the trees can process a lot more because of the size of their trunks, root structures that they have, and green leafy canopy.
The more recent projects like Trillion Trees, the World Economic Forum’s ‘1T’, and the UN’s follow-up ‘Great Green Wall for Cities’ highlight tree planting and forest regeneration as the most effective nature-based solution for escaping CO2 emissions. 1T uses research data which is showing that planting nearly one billion hectares (2.2 billion acres) of trees in the right places could actually able to remove 25 % of the CO2 from Earth’s atmosphere.
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This means the great green wall project would create an urban green area linked to vast forest restoration across both Africa and Asia. Once it is complete the wall will capture an estimated 0.5-5 billion metric tons of CO2 every year. And, if the project is well maintained or well managed its urban forests could also reduce air temperature, lower the risk of flood, and improve air quality by filtering the pollutants.
According to the research, city trees are sucking up more CO2 from the atmosphere. So that the forest can soak up more than that, they are absorbing 30 % of carbon emissions from fossil fuels. One project proposed by the Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki is now creating a small community forest across the planet, using native trees to provide shade, support plants, and animals, and store carbon in the city centers. The Miyawaki’s micro-forests are much denser than usual plantations. They store 30 times more CO2 than single-species forests and offer 30 times better noise and dust reduction.
Trees not only cool their surroundings and filter out CO2, but they also recycle tiny PM or particulate matter pollutants. Conifer trees, such as yew, pine, or cypress trees can reduce the matter pollutants or PM best because they are evergreen.
But apart from trees, they are figuring out which exact species work best to improve air quality depending on many factors including local climate, soil, and site conditions. Generally, the tree species that live long and require little maintenance are top of the list.
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