A prayer for trees: For Kenyan tribes, saving forests is a sacred duty

Colombia’s National Development Plan for cattle ranching seeks to reduce pasture land from 94 million acres to 70 million acres while increasing cattle numbers from 23 million head to 40 million. The program focuses on planting trees on grazing land and the "cut and carry method," whereby farmers grow fields of shrubs and distribute the fresh cuttings to cows in pastures. The result is greater cattle productivity and a more eco-friendly farming system.

The people of Malawi count on wood for cooking, cleaning, and sanitation, which contributes to the country’s ranking as fifth highest in the world for deforestation. Once thought unsolvable, the people of the country are planting trees, benefiting from water filters, and using efficient cookstoves.

Environmental refugees in Ethiopia flee their country because there are no jobs without healthy land. A group of former refugees have returned to Ethiopia with a business venture in Gergera to improve the land by regreening efforts, foresting, and building water conservation systems. The new businesses demonstrated such positive effects that the region is now on the brink of resettlement due to improved environmental conditions.

Villages along the Irrawaddy River delta in Myanmar have spent years replanting mangroves in at attempt to restore their ecosystem and guard against the negative effects of climate change, but it is a labor intensive and time-consuming process. Now, with the help of specially-designed tree planting drones from startup BioCarbon Engineering, as many as 10,000 trees can be planted in a single day, using technology that not only distributes seeds in special pods, but is able to calculate optimal soil conditions, locations, and species of tree most likely to survive in any given area.

More golf courses are closing than are opening, allowing the rare opportunity to have open space in an urban environment. Restorations are becoming popular to allow wildlife and humans to make use of the natural space through the encouragement of different animals and plants to inhabit the same area as well as the development of parks and bike paths to foster human use.

Tearing down trees to save a forest? While that may not sound like a solution, it could in fact be the key to restoring the former forest that inhabited the Appalachian region in the Eastern United States. “Ripping so deep might seem extreme, but it’s the only way to give these native trees a chance,” says Chris Barton, co-founder of non-profit Green Forests Works and a professor specializing in forest hydrology and watershed management, by means of explaining the ongoing effort he and other researchers, scientists and non-profits are making to reclaim native forests in this region.

In Brazil, 45% of agriculturally viable land is owned by 1% of tenants. To combat this inequitable ratio, the Landless Workers’ Movement formed and took a stand for seizing lands that are "not fulfilling a productive or social use." The group successfully reclaimed an area known as Mario Lago and has since begun a reforestation process alongside agroforestry which has allowed for an increase in diversity of food produced. The farmers haven't stopped there, however. To sell their produce, they have implemented a system of turning the consumer into a co-producer thus ensuring economic stability.

Overfarming, over-grazing, climate change and population growth are all to blame for turning Duolun County in China's Inner Mongolia region into a bigger desert than it was to begin with. With 87 percent of the area turned into desert, sandstorms began to be the norm and would often engulf the neighboring region of Beijing. The Duolun project attempts to stop this by embarking on a tree-planting mission. Not without it's limitations and criticisms, this solution is by no means perfect, but it's somewhat of a start that has seen Duolun reportedly increase to 31 percent forested land.

Hurricane Mitch, deforestation, and flooding, were all factors that led to the decline of mangrove trees in El Salvador. The Mangrove Association, a coalition of 80 communities, is bringing the mangrove population back up.

The deforestation of Virunga National Park has lead to erosion, landslides and loss of wildlife habitat. The trees are often used for charcoal which is seen as an essential commodity in the region. To save the forest, and the wildlife that require it to thrive, both local and international groups are testing out alternative methods to get the people the charcoal they need while saving what is left of Africa's oldest park.