Plant Trees
Where Can I Plant Trees?
How You Can Plant a Tree to Fight Climate Change
Forests and woodlands are important parts of the landscape, both in the UK and elsewhere. As well as being beautiful and fun things to climb when you’re a kid, trees are hugely important for the planet. During the day, they soak up carbon dioxide from the air, which they use to help them grow. The carbon turns into wood and the oxygen gets released back into the atmosphere. They really are the lungs of the planet. Every tree that grows helps to reduce the concentration of carbon emissions in the atmosphere.Deforestation is the world’s second biggest source of greenhouse gases driven by the desire to exploit the economic value of timber and to a lesser extent the expansion of farm land. The world’s forestry industry is not very well regulated. Deforestation is currently a particular problem in Indonesia but historically the Amazon rainforest has suffered deforestation as have the boreal forests of North America and Eurasia.
As the majority of people now live in cities, they are not easily aware of the extent of deforestation but they do still care about treees. In early 20111, the UK Government announced that it planned to sell the existing forests currently under public ownership through the Forestry Commission. This casued am enormous reaction with over 500,000 people signing a petition agaist the move. The proposals were withdrawn in February 2011 but the campaign called Save Our Forests has decided to keep running as current law still allows the government to sell 15% of the estate. If you would like to enjoy a stroll in the woods, you can find your nearest one at a website called VisitWoods. Enjoy.
When you buy wood and wood products like paper, look for the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) logo: this tells you the forest is well managed. The biggest cause of rainforest destruction is through deforestation clear felling to make way for monoculture palm oil. Well managed forests avoids deforestation and provides employment and income for local people.
