China's land restoration and afforestation projects provide fundamental support to the country's poverty reduction targets of elevating 20 million people out of poverty, with the lives of 3 million people already improved through increased household income.
Relations to climate change
China's forest scientists argued that monoculture tree plantations are more effective at absorbing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide than slow-growth forests, so while diversity may be lower, the trees purportedly help to offset China's carbon emissions.
China and Africa are building 'great walls' of trees to hold back the desert. But will it work? It borrows its name from the massive stone structure built by the Qin Dynasty. But the purpose of the Green Great Wall is not to hold back the barbarians — it's to stop the ever-encroaching deserts.
Northern Anatolian city of Çorum broke the world record for the most trees planted at a single site in one hour – 303,150 saplings. This year's event didn't get as much publicity, but Erdogan stated that Turkey had set a goal to plant a total of 7 billion young trees by the end of 2023.
Let's say the average tree takes up 50 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. If a person planted a tree every year for 20 years – and each one survived, which is highly unlikely – those 20 trees would take up about 1,000 pounds, or half a ton, of carbon dioxide per year.
Softwoods are imported in greater quantities than hardwoods. The Russian Federation is the main source of imported logs, supplying about 60 percent of the total – about 95 percent softwood, mainly larch (mostly Larix sibirica) and Mongolian Scotch pine (mostly Pinus sylvestris var.
The map shows how, from 1990-2015, China planted the largest amount of new forest out of any country. By 2015, the amount of planted forest in China covered 79m hectares – an area more than three times the size of the UK.
Stretching across Mongolia and China's northwest is the fastest growing desert on Earth. It's already 1.2 million square kilometers in size, but each year the Gobi Desert adds around another 6,000 to that number.
China's Great Green Wall is a truly impressive project, a titanic effort to push back against the encroaching Gobi Desert. Officially called the Three-North Shelter Forest (or Shelterbelt) Program (TNSP), this project is pioneering, and, despite some setbacks and failures, has been mostly successful.
The Great Wall protected China's economic development and cultural progress, safeguarding trading routes such as the Silk Road, and securing the transmission of information and transportation in northern China.
Reforestation vs.
Trees are natural carbon capture and storage machines, absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere through photosynthesis then locking it up for centuries. It's why reforestation and afforestation are touted as key solutions to the climate crisis.
There are several reasons that deforestation is so much a part of developing nations. One of the most prominent reasons is logging or cutting down trees for processing. While logging does provide temporary relief from poverty once loggers cut down the trees, it takes years for them to grow back.
Although one part of the loss of tree cover is due to wildfires, shifting agriculture, and forestry, which provoked only temporary deforestation, a larger part of the loss of tree cover is driven by urbanisation and commodity-driven logging, resulting in permanent deforestation.
The majority of Australia's annual total log harvest originates from commercial plantations. The remainder is sourced from native production forests.
As the largest destination market for Australian timber, China imports 4 million tons of log and pulped timber every year, accounting for about 90 percent of Australia's timber exports worth $A1.
Some major wood exporters are also major wood importers like China, USA and Germany. China is the largest wood exporter as well as importer country in the world. Here, we take a comprehensive look at the top importing and exporting countries of wood and articles of wood; wood charcoal.
But 11,000 years ago, what we know today as the world's largest hot desert would've been unrecognizable. The now-dessicated northern strip of Africa was once green and alive, pocked with lakes, rivers, grasslands and even forests.
China's remaining intact forests are scattered throughout the country: Southwest: Western Sichuan; the Nu-Salween River valley and around the Myanmar border in Yunnan; the Yarlung Tsampo River canyon. Northeast: the Daxing'an mountains in northern Inner Mongolia. Northwest: the northernmost area of Xinjiang.
Chinese researchers offer a solution to soil degradation: a plant paste that can turn the desert into a grassland. The new technology might help 500 million people just in Central Asia. Turning desert into fertile soil.
A single mature tree, meanwhile, may take in about 50 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. At this rate, it would take 640 trees per person to account for all American emissions, which adds up to more than 200 billion trees.
Without trees, humans would not be able survive because the air would be unsuitable for breathing. If anything, people would have to develop gas masks that filter the little oxygen that would be left in the air.
It is proposed that one large tree can provide a day's supply of oxygen for up to four people. Trees also store carbon dioxide in their fibers helping to clean the air and reduce the negative effects that this CO2 could have had on our environment.