Planting forests may be the best way of storing carbon by providing work and encouraging economic growth in developing countries like Africa.
A good example is a farmer in Burkina Faso where Yacouba Sawadago used a traditional technique to establish plants on his dry unproductive land. He used rows of fist-sized stones to create a shaded micro site for grasses to start and he also digs holes to which he added manure which attracted termites who created tunnels helping conserve moisture to encourage the trees to grow.
He turned his 50 acres into a productive farm after his land produced grass, then shrubs and finally trees. Even more impressive was in neighbouring Niger where local farmers with out any government assistance or help from aid agencies restored 40,000 square miles of unproductive land into forests using a similar approach.
These stories were from a book the Wizard and the Prophet (two remarkable scientists and the duelling visions to shape tomorrow’s world) by Charles Mann who describes the ongoing debate between the environmental concerns about the impact of humans on the health of the planet. The profit is William Vogt who was crippled by polio but managed to travel many remote areas of south America where he witnessed the humans impact on the natural ecosystems and was one of the main leaders of the environmental movement which continues to this day.
The wizard was Norman Borlaug who was the only plant breeder to receive the Nobel Peace prize for the development of a wheat variety that was credited with saving millions from starvation. This grain was part of the green revolution in the 1960s when I was studying agriculture at university. The debate is still ongoing as the optimists still feel we can continue to develop our way out of the environmental crisis and continue to feed the millions of addition humans added to the planet. The author looks at four elements, earth, water, fire and air which equates to food, fresh water, energy and climate change. Author Mann looks at the challenges in each section through the eyes of the two scientists.
The most ambitious section is about carbon forests established on much drier areas like the Sahara desert where desalinization plants would be needed to get plants established. Once the forests are established studies show they become self supporting and could be replaced by fast growing saplings. All this is expensive but it is not unreasonable to imagine that all the economic activity of making the Sahara habitable would offset some of the costs.
The author also looks at the long-term impact of pyrolizing old trees and any carbon sources into charcoal (biochar) which can improve the nutrient holding capacity of the sandy soils. Johannes Lehmann a charcoal soil expert from Cornell university has calculated that turning residues from agriculture and logging residues could offset as much as an eighth of the worlds carbon dioxide output if the gases from charcoal making were captured and turned into fuel. The debate continues about the best way to capture carbon but the author makes the point that reforesting functions best when it is bottom up , harnessing the willingness of people like Yacouba Sawadogo and the farmers of Niger.
