Shell’s Senior Management Has Declared The World Must Find Room To Restore An Entire Amazon Of Trees

As an old treeplanter and global eco-restoration guy I have some advice for Shell

What are we waiting for, let’s get on with it

We can plant billions of trees as fast as we can collect the seeds to start

Years ago when Hungary was negotiating to join the European Union, farmers in the EU were afraid of the vast amount of agricultural products that might flood EU markets. The deal Hungary had to agree to was to remove millions of hectares of agricultural land from production as soon as it joined the EU. Other nations of Eastern Europe had their feet held to the same fire as Hungary and also gave up vast areas of agricultural lands.

40+years ago I started my first treeplanting company. Over the years the company has been responsible for planting hundreds of millions of trees… oh my aching back. Click to read more.

What happened next is a tragic story. The Eastern European nations joining the EU of course gave up the lowest quality agricultural land, mostly pastures. The nations had to do it to enjoy the benefits of being members of the EU. Whether this was a good idea or not only history will tell.

The pasture and grazing lands that were sacrificed were inhabited by not so many people, shepherds and grazing livestock farmers. The poorest of the poor with little political savvy and no economic ability to resist. What might be done with those now abandoned and derelict lands?

Forests Should Be Forever

Hungary for example has a long history over the past thousand years of changing its landscape from 70% old growth forest to 17% forest. It’s wonderous old forests of beech and oak and other native species were decimated. Much of the high value forest was/is cut for timber and biofuel today.

European Beech is a climax tree species that supports a vast array of biodiversity and beauty.

Hungary, is home to the most famous of all the world’s schools of forestry at Sopron. But it has been hard pressed to care for its future forests that might be planted on its abandoned EU agriculture/sacrificial lands. They simply haven’t had the money to engage in reforestation. Instead the eliminated pastures have been allowed to simply fall into waste-land and slowly go back to nature.

Not all trees are created equal

Going back to nature might be a fine idea if one has a thousand years or more to wait for natural forest succession to replace the early pioneering weedy trees and brush that have been taking over these empty lands. By intelligently choosing to replant biodiverse climax forests in the patterns they might achieve through thousands of years of natural process we might do better.

Robinia, the thorn covered black locust, is a pioneering small tree that is fast to cover abandoned lands. It is tenacious and highly competitive tree that almost perfectly keeps other trees from becoming established for centuries.

The Asian black locust (Robinia sp.) is the weediest and thorniest of weed trees and everywhere in Hungary today it is a growing black plague on the lands that once held as beautiful forests as could be found anywhere on this earth. Across Eastern Europe the same story is repeated over and over again.

We can, and must do better, than to simply do nothing but wait for a thousand years for vital forests to become our partners in taking care of this planet with us.

Dear Shell,

If you are serious about calling for the eco-restoration of vast forests of trees to this suffering world then there can be no better place to start than in your own European Union neighbors lands There are millions of hectares of lands desperate for the hand labour of planting 2 billion trees as fast as we can do it. There are plenty of willing and able people across the rural landscapes of Eastern Europe who would be greatly benefitted by having a job to do your bidding and start immediately planting the billions of trees you have called for.

In this age of Climate Change and the Paris Accord, as well as within long-established EU conservation forestry programs, there are ample financial resources to make the planting of these billions of trees possible. Thousands of workers will make it a worthy and profitable enterprise. It’s not a ‘boot-strap’ job in terms of the business plan, but the plan that will work is easy to understand and rooted in sound forest and climate science and economics.

As for the Amazon which is tragically suffering from destruction of 20% of its area that has been turned to agriculture there is scant land available to reforest. Leading the world in restoration ecology of forests ought to begin right here in Europe.

Seed Money Is What It Takes

What the plan needs most of all and right away is ‘seed money.’  The first step in restoring a forest is to gather the seeds and get them started in tree nursery’s across central and eastern Europe.

Let’s restore the ancient forests of Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and more… and let’s begin immediately.

Do I really believe that Shell is being earnest in its reported plea to plant more trees, I sure hope it is true.

In the meantime, the greatest threat to this world is waiting for someone else to save it. Don’t wait. Join me.

Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up–David Orr