Climate Change Impact: 5 Powerful Ways It Shapes Our Lives
In a world where climate change discussions often revolve around distant polar landscapes and melting ice caps, it's easy to overlook the immediate and tangible...
We all have a carbon footprint, there is no escaping it. Our carbon footprint is a measurement of how much we contribute to the greenhouse effect and ultimately the ongoing global warming.
The best way to reduce your carbon footprint is to avoid making emissions. However – eventually once you have changed all the habits you can to get closer to zero. What do you do next?
There are a number of ways to reduce the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. When we decided what to offer to the Tribaldata community we opted for offering the simplest and most proven method there is – planting trees.
To plant trees, we chose to work with Eden Reforestation. Their expertise, scale and track record in running hundreds of successful reforestation projects around the world is quite impressive.
In close partnership with the local communities, Eden are today running hundreds of reforestation projects around the world. There, in extremely remote settings, they work through a range of challenges, from extreme weather and landslides, to poachers, bandits, and wild animals.
They work alongside the communities to produce, plant, and protect trees, and in the process creating jobs to support them in restoring their local environment and economy long-term.
Because of its many endemic species and severe habitat loss rates, Madagascar is one of the world’s top priorities when it comes to biodiversity. The destruction of the mangroves along the coast has caused a lot of issues. Mudflats wash into the ocean, destroying once-productive fisheries and the vulnerability of coastal communities to hurricanes, tsunamis, and floods increases.
Eden reforestation projects began restoring the mangroves in Mahajanga in 2007. There they work with clearing of dead trees, collecting native species, and planting trees during low tide. Less than a decade since the start, the site developed into a thriving mangrove forest, with a healthy aquatic ecosystem. Since this first plantation, various others have been started and Edens activities have grown to also include a variety of upland dry deciduous forests in 2012.
Today, Eden run close to 100 project sites with everything that entails such as extensive infrastructure with guardhouses, fire towers, and seed banks. They also developed a training center for local nursery managers to teach seedling management and effective reforestation techniques.
Edens work is creating livelihoods for thousands of people currently living in extreme poverty by empowering them to restore and protect forests on a massive scale. This helps reverse climate change, global deforestation, habitat loss for endangered species, and extreme poverty. There are many reasons why Eden Reforestation Projects is a great partner to work with. The positive effects of planting trees go well beyond the pure reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once wrote – “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. Technology is about harnessing complex chains of events and making them simple and accessible to people.
So the next time you press the button in the app to plant a tree, although on your part it can seem almost effortless, you are making a very real positive difference. You tapping the button give a positive ripple effect that is felt through people’s lives in Madagascar. For meaningful and stable employment. For the local communities, that are brought back to life and thrive again. For the ecosystem. For the planet.
