China has made extraordinary achievements in afforestation in the past few decades. The forest coverage rate coming from around 10% at the 1950s, to today’s 24.02%, with a forest conservation of 231 million hectares. Forest coverage has doubled in just a few decades. What makes people even more proud is that China's afforestation area has accounted for more than 25% of the world's over the years, making it the country with the largest and fastest forest growth in the world.
Afforestation is well-deserved flagship project in the overall global environmental protection. Governments in various countries all have paid attention to the benefits that trees bring to our planet. Even “Mother Nature” complained in the Apple press conference’s commercial that "everyone says they are planting trees." If you have some basic understanding of ecology, you can understand easily why so.
Why everyone's planting trees?
Simply put, planting a tree can provide huge benefits in three dimensions:
1. Ecological:
Trees can absorb carbon dioxide from the air through photosynthesis to mitigate climate change process. They also protect soil and prevent soil erosion, purify and improve groundwater quality, provide habitats for animals and plants, and increase biodiversity, etc.
2. Social:
For example, China's "poverty alleviation through ecology" project carries out tree planting restoration on degraded grasslands, deserts, and wetlands, and attempts to develop the "Under-canopy Economy." It creates jobs for poor residents in these regions, improves their income, and promotes economic and social development.
3. Economic:
Planting trees can bring wealth to society as a whole. If the species planted are commercial timber stands, they can be sustainably mined and processed into a variety of wood products over the years. Man-made forests with ecological benefits that are close to nature can become a destination for eco-tourism and other outdoor activities, providing outdoor enthusiasts with outdoor adventure venues such as bird watching, hiking, camping, etc.
The current ecological function of artificial forests is low
Although the construction of large-scale forests can theoretically bring so many returns, due to the excessive pursuit of quantitative indicators such as forest area and coverage rate in the process of tree planting in many places. And due to people's insufficient technical knowledge in planting and maintenance, many man-made forests are pure(monoculture) forests of low quality. A pure forest is an artificial forest where the trees are of the same species. A pure forest will cause many ecological benefits of the forest to be unable to be exerted. For example, the biodiversity of a pure forest is poor, and insects, birds, and animals are often unwilling to live in a pure forest. Pure forests have more pests and diseases and are more likely to have wildfires. It would be a pity if people's hard work of planting trees does not achieve the optimal results due to poor design and planning like this. A 2019 study found that natural forests in the tropics and subtropics contain 40 times more carbon than artificial forest. This shows that the environmental benefits of different forest qualities can vary greatly. Therefore, any forest practitioners and volunteers should pay attention to the matching of tree species and plant the right trees at the right place and at the right time.
China has begun to pay attention
The problem of poor forest quality has been paid attention to by the Chinese government. In Shanghai, where SeriousPlanting company is located, several recent government policy plans have put improving biodiversity of forest on the agenda.
For example, in 2022, the Shanghai Municipal Natural Resources Bureau's "Shanghai Land Space Ecological Restoration Special Plan 2021-2035" it says to "strengthen urban habitat creation and returns native land to the city" and "expands ways and means of biodiversity protection."
The "Implementation Opinions of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government on Scientific Greening" issued on December 28, 2022 says, "Strengthen the management of greening and afforestation construction, fully protect native vegetation, wildlife habitats, rare plants, etc." "Transform green spaces and woodlands according to local conditions, enrich forest features, Gradually increase the proportion of tree planting, actively improve the ecological landscape level of green spaces, and implement precise forest quality improvement projects."
Conclusion
The reason for low ecological function of artificial forest is long-term insufficient investment. It is believed generally that the compensation standards for artificial forests are low and cannot even meet the most basic needs for forest management and protection, fire prevention, and pest control. Now when we are planting trees, we should not just plant trees, but also establish a healthy, diverse and sustainable complete ecosystem for the forest. Otherwise, the inefficient forest land produced by poor planting planning is likely to become a burden to the forestry department in the future and will not be able to create the great value it is supposed to present.