Trees, Please

Courtesy of the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research

The teak and mahogany trees in the Amazon's rainforest and the Monterey pine and Callery pear in San Francisco’s urban jungle have new significance in light of recent news reports.

 

Deforestation in the Amazon is down by more than half, reports Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The success is largely the result of the government’s new Green Arch, Legal Land Program, which aims to reduce deforestation by 80 percent by 2020. From August 2009 to February 2010, the deforestation rate was 51 percent lower than it was over the same timeframe the year before.

 

“Green Arch, Legal Land focuses on 43 municipalities within the states of Amazonas, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia and Roraima as priorities for controlling deforestation. It's in these areas that 55 percent of all Amazon deforestation is taking place,” according to Treehugger.

 

So far, the program seems to be making progress with increased policing of illegal activity and involvement of forest inhabitants.

 

“The program works by both giving land titles to Amazon residents (enrollment in the Rural Environment Registry) and paying the residents to prevent deforestation. Government agencies will coordinate under the plan to prevent illegal logging and train some 300 officials to prevent land-grabbing in some municipalities,” the Global Times reports.

 

In the northern hemisphere, government groups, nonprofits, and businesses are working together on a project call the Urban Forest Map, an online database of trees in San Francisco—which will grow to include other cities in time—that will help residents understand the value of trees (like how much water they capture and gas greenhouse they sequester). The information will also help land managers make informed decisions.

 

“The information we gather will help urban foresters and city planners to better manage trees in specific areas, track and combat tree pests and diseases, and plan future tree plantings. Climatologists can use it to better understand the effects of urban forests on climates, and students and citizen scientists can use it to learn about the role trees play in the urban ecosystem,” the creators say on their website.

 

That information leaves this reader feeling like celebrating Friday’s Arbor Day a few days early.