SlashAndBurnReturn
ListenToYourselfChurnVille
It would appear that a Canadian company called Flash Forest just might be set to to end, or at least put a serious dent in, what is one of our largest and longest running summer jobs progams of all time:
The above was from a Forbes report in the fall of 2020.
And, now, a little over two years later, it's still pretty much a credulous gee-willikers, better-than-sliced-bread-type story.
So.
If this works, obviously it will be a very good thing in terms of the rate and cost of reforestation.
But, on the unintended consequences side...
...Flash Forest is a reforestation company that uses aerial mapping software, drone technology, pneumatics, automation and ecological science to reforest areas at a rapid pace, especially areas that have been clear-cut or ravaged by wildfires.
Having the hard labor done by a drone accelerates the pace of reforestation by at least 10 times over having humans alone do the work (see video below). And two humans could potentially direct 10 of these drones, so the pace can be geometrically accelerated...
{snip}
...The company aims to bring the cost down to 55¢ per tree, about a quarter of the cost of most tree restoration efforts...
The above was from a Forbes report in the fall of 2020.
And, now, a little over two years later, it's still pretty much a credulous gee-willikers, better-than-sliced-bread-type story.
However, the company has started to scale up and is doing field tests:
...By spring of 2022, the company refined its drone and software tech and partnered with federal and provincial governments, private landowners, forestry companies and First Nations communities to plant 150,000 trees on land they each own or manage.
The company had fleets of three drones each planting 1,500 to 1,600 pods across public and private parcels in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta. Flash Forest monitors and ensures the desired seedling density is reached across each site it visits, and checks on the health, growth rate and species distribution of seedlings after the plantings...
So.
If this works, obviously it will be a very good thing in terms of the rate and cost of reforestation.
But, on the unintended consequences side...
When will we get the first report of some unsuspecting back country hiker being forced to take cover under a hail seed pods being shot pneumatically from black helicopters....errrrr...drones?
And, more importantly...
What will all those legions of kids who used to take to the woods every summer, shovel in hand (and weed in backpack) do to make their college tuition nut?
And, perhaps most importantly, just think of all the music, like that of the Be Good Tanyas from days of yore, that won't get made.
OK?
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Earworm in the sub-header machinery?....Of course....This.
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3 comments:
No more topless tree planting....what a shame. Seedlings should be planted in the proper microsite and to the proper depth. I wonder how these drones will accomplish that.
Gordie--
What you're wondering about will be critical...So far this is all still at the whiz bang stage as far as I can tell.
As for the attire or lack thereof of tree planters....But what about the bugs?!
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It’s not only that I probably planted a million trees on the West Coast of the Big Island over the dozen years my body was able to take it, but like Gordie says, micrositing times actual planting of a seedling requires high-tech research called “screefing” or “grubbing” without which seedling survival plummets precipitously.
Yeah, sure, it’s technically possible to shoot frozen seedling plugs down from a chopper-mounted Gatling gun—cover and recover the area over and over, and survey for survival (this aspect, I grant, could probably be assisted by drone technology), returning again to lay down more covering fire onto the bald patches that always happen (underline “always”), but 55¢ per tree I question when at least double-digit extra numbers of trees would be required to satisfactorily restock a cutover to acceptable standard.
Like, I don’t believe it.
There’s an old saying—was it the renown Wilkinson?—that if you have to replant, you’re doing it wrong. (When I became an educated prescriber —instead of planter—of trees, I actually got some respect from M&B when I suggested it try “edge-effect” where at least 50% of the cutover is within one tree-length of the surrounding timber. The seed-in and shaded parts of the day provide bigly amounts of natural regeneration. Funny looking cut blocks, though. But that’s another story.)
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