trees

Planting Trees to Fight Climate Change

- Adam Clare

logoTree-Nation will plant 8 million trees in Africa in the shape of a huge heart to fight Climate Change and Poverty. We will create the park in Niger which is one of the poorest countries in the world, and one that suffers the most from climate change and desertification. Furthermore, we are affiliated with the United Nations Environment Program in support of each others projects.

We have built a great new kind of website that combines a community with our own mapping tool. Inspired by Google maps we built our own special version to be able to plant 8 million trees, all with blogs and profiles.

So via our website you can buy trees for yourself or offer and send one to someone you love, and people are doing this for Weddings, Valentines, new born babies, birthdays, to advertise a business, or simply to share some thoughts. You can plant a tree on a virtual map and a real tree will be planted in the same place in the real world. The virtual trees all have Tree-Blogs and Profiles so that you can keep in touch with the recipient and interact with others who have bought trees via our community. You can share ideas, photos, messages, make contacts and debate on environmental issues.

It really is exciting to see members buying trees, writing beautiful messages and then sending them to loved ones via our website.

Note: This was not written by me, but by Jeremiah from Tree Nation.

Environmental Debt

- Adam Clare

E Magazine is reporting that Guatemala and the United States of America have signed a landmark agreement that switches debt into forest conservation.

“Environmentalists around the globe are toasting a deal announced last week in which the U.S. government has agreed to forgive $24.4 million in debt from Guatemala to free up the money for use in forest conservation efforts there. Two leading international conservation nonprofits, the Nature Conservancy and Conservation International, were instrumental in putting the “debt-for-nature” together, and each organization also provided $1 million toward Guatemalan conservation initiatives to help sweeten the deal.”

Kayapó Tribe Fights Deforestation

- Adam Clare

The International Herald Tribune has a really nice article about a tribe in the Amazon that is fighting deforestation. The author recounts his previous experience of going into the Amazon and compares that to what it is like today. It actually starts off rather depressing since the environmental destruction is so prominent, but what makes the article so good is how hard the Kayapó is working to protect this invaluable natural resource.

“The Kayapó grand chief, Megaron, is leading the fight to preserve their lands that form the largest tropical rain forest reserve in the world.”

The tribe has had quite a few success in defending the forest from “development.” Let’s hope they never give up!

Greenpeace’s McVictory

- Adam Clare

mcvictory Greenpeace is reporting great success in their campaign to get McDonald’s to better respect the environment. This is really great for the rainforest!

“In recent years, the seemingly unstoppable expansion of soya farming in the Amazon had become one of the main threats to the world’s largest rainforest. The soya wasn’t being used to feed the world; instead it was used to feed farm animals destined for fast food and supermarket chains across Europe.”

The campaign to get McDonald’s to change their destructive was launched only in April of this year. The name of the campaign is rather witty – Eating up the Amazaon.

“The result is that McDonald’s and other big food retailers have worked with us to develop a zero deforestation plan. The plan will also help bring an end to the land-grabbing and social injustice that is rife in the Amazon.”

Man Grows Furniture, Art From Living Trees

- Benny Powers

It’s called arborsculpture, and Richard Reames has been doing it for years. He plants trees in patterns, and uses bending and grafting techniques to form the saplings into benches, staircases, sculptures, and an assortment of other amazing living things.

I believe that if enough people put their minds to using living trees, we can learn to grow houses. I believe that if we put our minds to it, like going to the moon, there’s no reason we couldn’t all be living in houses where the walls and ceilings are composed of living tree material and there are leaves coming out of the roof. We could accomplish this in one generation. We’d build doorways and windows that the trees would grow around, and also plumbing and electrical conduits. The trees would just swallow all the pipes. We’re going to call this “arbortecture.”

You’ve just got to see the pictures in this article!

Scroll To Top