1 / 26

Restoring the Earth

Restoring the Earth. Amanda Blakley Mac Harris. Why Restore the Earth?. We are dependent on earth’s natural systems for O goods: building materials to seafood O services: flood control to crop pollination If environmental systems continue to decline, we fall.

dstump
Download Presentation

Restoring the Earth

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Restoring the Earth Amanda Blakley Mac Harris

  2. Why Restore the Earth? • We are dependent on earth’s natural systems for O goods: building materials to seafood O services: flood control to crop pollination • If environmental systems continue to decline, we fall

  3. Protecting and Restoring Forests It is important to protect the 4 billion hectares of forests remaining Replant and Reforest Reducing rainfall runoff, flooding and erosion, recycling rainfall inland, restoring aquifer all depend on forests and reforestation

  4. Protecting and Restoring Forests Cont. • Reduce quantity of wood used for paper products • South Korea 77% recycled - if all nations did this, use of wood pulp would drop by 1/3

  5. Protecting and Restoring Forests Cont. • The largest demand for wood is the need for fuel • AIDS programs – Kenya nearly 800,000 stoves distributed burn more efficiently and cause less pollution- also solar cooker project • Also, Kenya is site of solar cooker project • $10 – less than two hours to cook a meal

  6. Protecting and Restoring Forests Cont. • Forest Protection Efforts • Protected many times to preserve natural services – i.e. flood control • Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) • 88 millin hectacres, 76 Countries

  7. Protecting and Restoring Forests Cont. • Plantations • Top 5 countries now produce 60% of plantation wood– China, US, Russia, Canada Sweden • Many farms coming up in tropics – higher yields and longer growing periods pg.156 • Can help but must not replace old-growth forest • Could some day satisfy al of the worlds need for wood

  8. Protecting and Restoring Forests Cont. • Reforestation • Sometimes Occurs Naturally – New England, Soviet Union/ East Europe • Forced: • South Korea – world’s example • Post-Korean War – village cooperatives, hundreds of thousands mobilized • Today, 65% country forest • Turkey, TEMA – 10 billion acorn project, 850 million to date • Niger – Farmers leaving acacia – fixing nitrogen levels and reducing soil erosion

  9. Protecting and Restoring Forests Cont. Reforestation effort must be in conjunction with population stabilization End net deforestation and sequester carbon through different replanting methods Adopt new agricultural management processes Must halt building of bio-diesel plants

  10. Conserving and Rebuilding Soil • Large Problem: Loss of protective vegetation - erosion • Clearcutting, overgrazing, and overplowing • Must plant in grass or trees before it becomes wasteland

  11. Conserving and Rebuilding Soil Cont. • US Congress 1985 – Conservation Reserve Program • By 1990 14 million hectares of high erosion risk land planted with permanent vegetative cover • Farmers were paid to plant grass and trees to fragile cropland • Reduced soil erosion from 3.1 billion tons to 1.9 billion tons

  12. Conserving and Rebuilding Soil Cont. • Conservation tillage: special way to plow the land • Retains water, reduces erosion, raises soil carbon count, reduces energy use • Helin County, Mongolia :Increasing Dairy Cattle – reducing sheep and goats • Less pressure on land • Greater incomes for people – double in the decade • India: bring forage to animals in dairy industry - thriving

  13. Regenerating Fisheries • Past attempts: Restricting the catch of individual species • Some success, some collapse

  14. Regenerating Fisheries Cont. • Future: Creating Marine Reserves/Parks • Serve as natural hatcheries, populating the surrounding waters • World Parks Congress : delegates recommended 20-30% of each marine habitat be protected • Currently - .6% of the oceans in marine reserves

  15. Regenerating Fisheries Cont. • Futurecont: • Managing Reserves of 30% would cost $12-14 billion annually • Possible increase of $70-80 billion yearly through reserves, for less than it now costs to implement subsidies • Ex: New England – post-reserve implementation, snapper quantities increase 40-fold, scallops 14-fold

  16. Regenerating Fisheries Cont. “All around the world there are different experiences, but the basic message is the same: marine reserves work, and they work fast. It is no longer a question of whether to set aside fully protected areas in the ocean, but where to establish them.” Also, Reduce fertilizer and sewage runoff that create world’s 200 dead zones

  17. Plant and Animal Diversity • Stabilization of human population and the earths climate are two essential steps • Stabilizing population will help protect the earths animal diversity • Old fashioned fenced in methods longer are sufficient, with no population stabilization, no ecosystem can be saved

  18. Planting Trees to Sequester Carbon • Deforestation is causing local flooding, rising seas and climate change as a whole • 2007 - Shrinking forests in tropical regions are releasing 2.2 billion tons of carbon per year - expanding forests in temperate regions on absorbing 0.7 billion tons - NET 1.5 billion tons released

  19. Planting Trees to Sequester Carbon • Tropical deforestation • Asia- Timber • Latin America - agriculture • Africa – fuel wood and agriculture • Indonesia and Brazil account for more than half of world’s deforestation

  20. Planting Trees to Sequester Carbon • Current Bans – from necessity • Thailand, Philippines and China • China – society became shareholder – no longer made sense to log • Farmers were paid to plant not deforest

  21. Planting Trees to Sequester Carbon • Future: • Brazil – if nothing is done to reverse trend it will be an economic disaster and accelerate global warming

  22. What Can be Done? • To reach Zero-Deforestation: • Halting population growth • Slowing construction of bio-diesel and ethanol distilleries • Slowing affluent consumption

  23. What Can be Done? • Vatenfall Plan – reforest 171 million hectares of wasteland over a decade • Worldwide Billion Tree Campaign (UNEP) • 2007 – urban tree plating initiatives in many cities • 1.2 pledged • 431 million planted to date

  24. What Can be Done? Tokyo – planting trees and shrubs on rooftops to reduce heat effects US – Cheyenne to Berkley cities are working on urban tree canopies to reduce energy use in various ways

  25. Plan B Proposed Budget Funding Needed to Restore the Earth Activity Funding (billions) Planting trees to reduce flooding/conserve soil 6 Planting trees to sequester carbon 20 Protecting topsoil on cropland 24 Restoring rangelands 9 Restoring fisheries 13 Protecting biological diversity 31 Stabilizing water tables 10 Total 113

  26. References www.fscus.org Plan B 3.0, Lester Brown www.nrcs.usda.gov

More Related