Even though we have a lot to worry about the pandemic, it is hard to ignore the issue of climate change that has been haunting Earth for two decades now. To tackle this problem, an organization working for the betterment of the environment Flash Forest has decided to plant trees on the land situated north of Toronto. This place was previously affected by wildfire and therefore, with the help of drones, the fields would be fired with seed pods, burying them into the ground.

Source: Flash Forest

According to Flash Forest, the plan is to plant 40 000 trees this month and as we progress into the area, they will spread this activity to the other parts of the region. The NGO says that if all goes well, their aim would be to plant 1 billion trees by the end of 2028.

Flash Forest believes that technology like drones can be used for a good cause and they will be using their own services for the venture.
The Intergovernmental Plan on Climate Channel also weighed in their two cents and said that it is important to plant 1 Billion trees before 2030 if we want the temperature of the Earth to remain below the rise of 1.5 degrees, the warning limit given by the scientists.

“There are a lot of different attempts to tackle reforestation,” says Flash Forest co-founder and chief strategy officer Angelique Ahlstrom. “But despite all of them, they’re still failing, with a net loss of 7 billion trees every year.”

According to research, drones do not waste a lot of resources and are far more efficient and cheaper than human labor. Right now, Flash Forest’s drone team reaches a target of 10 000- 20 000 seeds per day and if you compare planting trees by hand in a similar time frame, the volunteers would only be able to go up to 1500 trees.

Source: Flash Forest

The organization is working to map the areas so drones can point in an accurate direction. Along with this, a software has been developed that highlights perfect places to plant trees based on the soil. The seed pods being shot from drones have been genetically designed to store more moisture than normal so the seedlings are able to survive in tough conditions.
After the planting process, the company will return to the site after a few weeks to check the progress of their work.

“Depending on the project, we’ll go back two months after, and then a year or two after, and then three to five years after” to make sure the trees are actually sequestering as much carbon as they planned, Ahlstrom says. “If we fall under a threshold plant goal of a certain number of trees, we’ll go back and ensure that we are hitting our goal.”