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  • Could miniature forests help air-condition cities?

    The Miyawaki method of planting miniature natural forests in cities as a way to reduce air pollution and cool down temperatures is gaining ground throughout the world. The process involves planting a variety of trees in a particular way that allows for them to grow rapidly. While this method is very labor intensive and can be difficult to scale, there are more than 1,500 of these types of forests in Japan, India, and Pakistan.

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  • The people racing to replant Africa

    The Gambia river which rests in Sahel, the region between the Sahara desert and the African rainforest, used to be extremely fertile, farmers could live of the land. Yet, climate change and years of deforestation have made the land uncultivable. One NGO, with help from other organizations and international funders, is trying to rebuild the land by creating, "The Great Green Wall,” an effort to build an 8,000-km mural of plants and trees along the southern border of the Sahara desert. So far, 18 million hectares of land have been restored.

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  • These farmers show that agriculture in the Amazon doesn't have to be destructive

    Nearly a fifth of the Amazon has been cleared for cattle grazing and logging. However, a cooperative called RECA is making it economically sustainable for farmers to shift towards agroforestry. Agroforestry is the intentional planting of trees and shrubs in farms and forests among others. 11 tons of carbon per acre are sequestered through agroforestry systems. REFA farmers planted up to 40 species of trees then will process products from the species to be sold. The more than 300 families from the co-op made five times more per acre than local ranchers not practicing agroforestry.

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  • Why ‘tiny forests' are popping up in big cities

    In Europe, India, and other countries like the Netherlands tiny forests are being deployed to fight the effects of climate change. The small forests, some about the size of a parking lot or a basketball court, can help cities mitigate rising temperatures and sequester carbon. In the Netherlands, 144 tiny forests have been planted. A study that analyzed 11 tiny forests showed these forests hosted more than 600 animal species and close to 300 plant species.

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  • Chiredzi-Mwenezi rural communities burn biogas to save trees

    Rural communities in Bandama and Dungwe villages in Chiredzi and Mwenezi are using biogas technology to cook instead of cutting down trees for firewood. The technology relies on fermenting cow dung and using the material in biogas-specific stoves.

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  • 'The Beachcombers' town is now famous for fighting climate change

    A hit TV show in the 1970s and ‘80s called The Beachcombers brought the town of Gibsons and its logging practices into homes across Canada. After years of pollution and land degradation, it became one of the first towns in the world to incorporate nature into the municipality’s finances. Developers have to take stock of what natural infrastructure is on their property before they build. The town also launched an initiative to encourage other places to calculate the value of their green infrastructure. So far, 30 of them have signed up across the Great White North.

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  • Amid Devastating California Fire Season, One Small Community Saved Itself. Here's How

    After years of debate and education, the residents of the tiny community of Rock Haven, in the Sierra National Forest, found the will and the money to "treat" the forest around their homes: removing dead trees and brush that made the land extremely vulnerable to wildfire. When the massive Creek Fire in 2020 arrived, it wiped out the trees in the part of the property that had gone untreated, but left unscathed the treated land and the cabins on it. The costly preparation made firefighting safer and more effective while slowing the wildfire's spread.

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  • The forest sound detectives

    After remote Indigenous communities in Papau New Guinea set aside some of their land as conservation areas, they wanted to know if it was working. With the help from scientists and The Nature Conservancy, they were able to use bioacoustics or audio recordings of the rainforests to map out the biodiversity. Using 34 recording devices, they were able to record the forest, listen to them, analyze the sounds, and determine that these areas had a healthy biodiversity.

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  • The climate solution adding millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere

    A decade after California established its forest offset program as a way to incentivize saving trees to store carbon, a new analysis shows that it might not be working. Loopholes in the program allow for people to claim credits for trees that aren’t delivering the carbon benefits they should and ultimately results in companies emitting more pollution than is being stored. While this program has provided economic benefits for several Indigenous tribes, some argue that “the program creates the false appearance of progress when in fact it makes the climate problem worse.”

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  • The Farmer Trying to Save Italy's Ancient Olive Trees

    An imported strain of bacteria is threatening to destroy olive trees in Italy that produce about 12 percent of the world’s olive oil. An agronomist is working with other scientists to graft trees — taking a different kind of tree that could be resistant to the bacteria and inserting it into the trunk of an older tree. After years of trial and error, they’ve found some success. On one farm, 70 percent of the grafts used have survived. But conspiracy theories and financial difficulties have made it a challenge to have a coordinated response to the problem.

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