“Tree Plantations Are Not The Solution To Climate Change”

 [Everyone loves planting trees, but do they really have the desired impact? I write in YouthKiAwaaz.]

June 5th was World Environment Day, and my social media feed was full of photographs of people planting trees to commemorate it. Planting trees is a great photo op, and it is undeniable that you get a dopamine high when you plant the sapling, shovel earth to cover the hole and sprinkle water on it. I have loved doing it myself too. 

However, how many of the people planting trees take adequate measures to ensure that the saplings survive? Merely planting trees is not enough. They have to be watered regularly for a few months till the roots go deep enough for the trees to be able to fend for themselves. Saplings planted after the onset of the monsoon might survive even without watering, but given how unpredictable the showers can be, back-up arrangements should be put in place.

The saplings need to be protected from goats, sheep, cows and other herbivorous animals which love the tender shoots of new plants. Even if the saplings survive long enough to establish themselves, they are often planted so close to each other, none of them attain their proper shape or girth. Though it has been estimated that only about 40% of saplings planted in mass tree plantation drives survive, we continue to focus on planting new trees.

From an environmental perspective, planting trees, especially on World Environment Day or as a part of a green challenge, is largely tokenism.

What Are The Environmental Challenges We Face Today?

The two greatest environmental challenges that we face today are climate change and loss of bio-diversity, and planting new trees does little to address either issue.

How do trees help reverse climate change?

Climate Change is the blanket term used to define long term shifts in temperature and weather conditions caused due to the increase in the concentration of gases that trap heat in the atmosphere. This is caused primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels, and it can be addressed through a two pronged strategy- reducing the use of fossil fuels and removing the carbon di oxide already present in the atmosphere. The rationale given for planting trees is that they absorb carbon di oxide from the atmosphere and sequester it in their trunks.

What we choose to ignore is the fact that when a lone tree is felled or dies due to natural causes, the trunk is exposed to the atmosphere and the sequestered carbon is soon returned to it. In forests, on the other hand, when a tree falls, it gets covered up by vegetation and foliage which traps the carbon di oxide under its layers and prevents it from being returned to the atmosphere. Therefore, planting individual trees does not help much because it is only in forests that the carbon that is sequestered in trees is permanently taken out of the atmosphere.

How do trees contribute to increased bio-diversity?

Most of the saplings used in tree plantation are of non-native trees, some of which are even invasive. A few years back, for instance, Conocarpus was extremely popular because it was fast growing and could be used to “green” an area in a very short time. However, the pollen from the tree causes respiratory ailments, its roots often invade water pipes, and it is not conducive to supporting any biodiversity.

It is now been recognized as a pest, and new plantations are discouraged. Similarly, the “wet bulb” effect which makes summers in the Deccan appear hotter than they are, is partially caused by the proliferation of non-native trees which transpire more than the trees which normally grow in the region.

More importantly, a group of trees alone cannot replicate a forest. Forests take decades to develop, and they include not just the trees, but the mosses and lichens, the shrubs and creepers, and the insects, reptiles, birds and mammals which depend on the forest for their food and habitat. It is unlikely that trees planted as a part of a plantation drive will grow into a forest.

Eucalyptus is a tree that is often planted in large numbers as a part of afforestation or compensatory forestation drives. While the straight rows of eucalyptus trees may look pleasing aesthetically, they are disastrous from an environmental perspective. The trees do not support much biodiversity, and since most of them are destined to be chopped down to feed paper factories, they do not permanently sequester carbon either.

The need of the hour is to protect existing trees and forests

Even if planting trees doesn’t make much of an impact from the environmental persepctive, isn’t it better to plant trees than to not plant trees? On the face of it, one would be tempted to agree. However, when we plant trees, we get lulled into complacency and feel we are doing something for the environment, while in fact we are not.

Instead of planting trees to commemorate various “days”, we should pledge to protect the existing trees and forests everyday. We should vehemently oppose the cutting down of decades old trees and forests in the name of ‘development’. While politicians and government authorities try to present a binary where protecting the environment comes in the way of development, it does not have to be a binary. With careful planning, it is possible to design development projects which do not have an adverse impact on the environment. However, this will happen only if a sufficient number of people start demanding that existing trees and forests shouldn’t be indiscriminately felled in the name of development.

Instead of merely planting new trees, let us also cherish and document the existing ones. About a year back, I started geo tagging old and mature trees. The trees are now on Google maps, and the first tree I tagged has received more than a thousand views. If we similarly document trees in our neighbourhood, we leave a record of the giants who give us so much.

I am certainly not making a case against tree plantation. I have planted many trees myself, most of them in honour of someone I lost as a way of keeping their memory alive.

All I am saying is that even while planting trees, let us not get lulled into the false belief that by planting trees we are doing our bit to save the planet. To truly save the planet, we need to do a lot more than just planting trees.

[The author is not an expert, and these are opinions she has gathered by reading various books and articles. Please do point out errors, if any.]

Chandraghanta, the Fearsome One

She is beautiful, charming and graceful. But when

provoked she unleashes her power and destroys all

in her path.

© 2018

“Shouldn’t you be in school now?”, the stranger asked, smiling at me. How do I tell him that my school building is submerged except during extreme low tide? It wasn’t always so. When I was young, the waves would lash against the building, but the water rarely got into the building. The sea came closer and closer every year, and after the storms last year, the water never really left the building.
The teacher sometimes conducts lessons in his house, but most of the time, he is away looking for a job on another island. Soon he will leave. Soon they will all leave. We will all leave. We will only return in tourist season. But even that is no longer what it was. Fewer people are coming now than they did earlier.
This stranger. He is a tourist. But he doesn’t look like a typical tourist. He is actually looking at things, not just taking photographs. I wonder why he is here.
“Do you know I spent nearly six months on your island 27 years back?”, he said. “I am a marine biologist. I must have dived in these reefs over a hundred times.”
“What were they like?” I asked. “My grandmother tells me the coral was red and yellow and blue. But how is that possible? I have dived so many times. Coral is white.”
“Oh no. The coral on your island was never white. It was every colour you can imagine, and some colours you cannot imagine. I have some photographs I took when I was here last. I can show them to you sometime.”

The next day, I waited anxiously for the stranger to appear. And then the next day. Just when I thought he had forgotten his promise to show me photographs of my island, he appeared. He showed me photographs of the coral reef. I could barely recognise my beloved reef. Gone were the moody white coral. In their place there were bright colours- red, yellow, blue, purple. Every shade of blue. Colours as bright as the print on the sarongs I wear. Colours brighter than the flowers that dot my island.
“I can’t believe these are my corals”, I said. “How did they lose these beautiful colours? Did someone put a curse on them and take the colours away?”
“You could say it is a curse”, the stranger sighed. “sometimes, I do think mankind is a curse on itself.” He explained to me about global warming. About how people in far of countries made machines that released smoke into the air. The told me about global warming, and about how the colours were getting bleached out of the coral. He explained by ice caps were melting, and the sea level was rising.
“So that is why our school is now underwater?”, I asked.
He told me about how shorelines were shifting, and how land was getting eaten away.
“Will my island disappear?”, I asked in fear. My family has lived here for generations. What would happen to us if the island was no more.
“We cannot tell. Yours is a coral island, so the reefs might grow and recover some of the land that is lost. But we really cannot tell. Already, your island is much smaller than it was when I was here last.”
I nodded. I had heard stories about how the hungry sea often took away parts of the island.
“But if they know the islands are disappearing, why do they continue to make smoke?”, I asked.
He told me about how people don’t care about things they can’t see themselves. What happens in a distant island doesn’t matter to them, as long as you don’t ask them to give up their comforts. He told me how large companies didn’t want to stop releasing smoke, because they made more money if more smoke was released.
“So I might drown, and my entire family, and my entire island, and they will not care?”
“No, they will write about it for two days, and some people will protest for a week. But then they will all forget about it. Nobody really cares.”
We spoke about this every day, as long as the stranger was on my island. I couldn’t believe that my island was dying and nobody even cared. Sometimes my grandmother joined us. She remembered the island as it had been when she was a child. She remembered how the house we now lived in was once far inland, not on the coast. She remembered the big fish that were sometimes spotted near the island, but which have now disappeared. She and the stranger had much to talk about.
When it was time for the stranger to leave, I made a request.
“Take me with you. Take me with you so I can talk about my island and what they are doing to it. Take me with you. So I ask them to stop. Take me with you.”
He was reluctant, but my grandmother sided with me. “I am old”, she said. “I do not have many years to live. But she deserves a long life. Let her fight for it.”
The stranger finally agreed. He made my grandmother and me speak about our island and taped our appeal. He promised to return in a few months after lining up a few ‘speaking engagements’ for me.

This was one year back. I have visited many countries since. Spoken to many people. Some people listen to me. Most do not. They call me all sorts of names. But I will not back down. I cannot.
I am just 16. I do not want to die. I do not want my island to drown. I will keep talking about carbon emissions and global warming till they are forced to listen to me.

_____
I am Chandraghanta, the Fearsome One. The third manifestation of Nav Durga. I am every young woman fighting for the right to live.

Waiting for the Sun- Day 19 of #100happy days

The hubby had an early morning flight to catch, and after seeing him off, I made myself a steaming mug of coffee, and curled up with a good book, intending to watch the sun rise. I finished the mug, and another, but the sun was nowhere in sight. There was a light drizzle. It was a beautiful winter day - a wrap yourself in a woolen shawl kind of day- one we dream of but rarely get in Bombay.

I wished the morning could last forever.

And yet, I worry. About climate change and where it will eventually lead us.

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