Reforestation: Re-establishing forest cover naturally or artificially.
Afforestation is considered a cheap and safe technique; although not as effective at CO2 removal perhaps than other, more technologically advanced techniques. However, it is advantageous in the way that it removes carbon from the atmosphere and sequesters it, unlike solar management methods.
Deforestation occurs all around the world, although rates vary spatially. It has been recognised as a major contributor to global warming, and as a result many governments and NGOs are undertaking steps to try to reverse the process. Overall, the amount of deforestation is decreasing on a global scale (FAO 2001), and afforestation (in some countries) is increasing simultaneously. Biggest forest loss occurs in tropical regions and the biggest forest cover gains in temperate and boreal regions (FAO 2011), as well as emerging economies such as China.
There is loads of literature on this topic and I'll look at some of the big policies and schemes in more detail, to evaluate afforestations usefulness as a geoengineering technique. At the moment I like it because it's green and can't do much harm to the environment, but by the time the trees have grown and started to sequester carbon it might be too late!
Here is some other interesting stuff on the topic:
- Most deforested countries in the world, produced by the FAO.
- Most re-forested countries, also produced by the FAO.
- Another FAO publication assessing the state of the world's forests, it's nice because it's broken down into small regions. And in the annex, table 2 has figures for forest area and forest area change for every country 1990-2010.
A visual representation of the FAO's annex table 2.
- 23rd April 2011 saw over 100 cities worldwide plant trees as part of 'Earth Day' celebrations - I'd never heard of this Earth day before but it looks pretty good they promote and actively do LOADS of stuff for the environment.
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