New Zealand plans to plant 100 million trees per year: Is this possible?

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frednz

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#223939 24-Oct-2017 20:53

NZ has set itself a target of planting 100 million trees per year in a "Billion Trees" planting programme.

Now that means we need to plant about 274,000 trees per day, every day of the year.

Do you think this is possible when you consider ground preparation and the availability of such a large number of trees?

How many people would you need to have continuously working on this project?

Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11936301

Forestry
Re-establish the New Zealand Forestry Service, and planting 100 million trees per year in a Billion Trees Planting Programme.

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#1888961 24-Oct-2017 20:54

274k a day?...

Is this based off seeds dropped rather than actual growing trees planted?

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tehgerbil

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#1888969 24-Oct-2017 21:06

To be completely blunt, I don't care even if they manage half that. Just the recognition that they're trying is just fantastic.

It's better than nothing, and a darn site better than relaxing the rules left right and centre like National and their buddies were so keen to stuff over our environment.

It's been an absolute rort that our previous National Government essentially said they could not give an eff at all about our Climate.

/rant.

It's completely possible. India managed 66 MILLION in 12 hours. 100 million doesn't seem that many to plant in a year.

frednz

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#1888971 24-Oct-2017 21:08

hio77: 274k a day?...

Is this based off seeds dropped rather than actual growing trees planted?

Good question - perhaps this web site may help in understanding the best ways to grow trees from seeds.

It will be most interesting to see how this project is planned to be done and just where it's planned to grow these trees.

At a first glance, the project blows the mind, but perhaps it's all been well planned and is perfectly feasible?

frednz

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#1888976 24-Oct-2017 21:13

tehgerbil:

To be completely blunt, I don't care even if they manage half that. Just the recognition that they're trying is just fantastic.

It's better than nothing, and a darn site better than relaxing the rules left right and centre like National and their buddies were so keen to stuff over our environment.

It's been an absolute rort that our previous National Government essentially said they could not give an eff at all about our Climate.

/rant.

It's completely possible. India managed 66 MILLION in 12 hours. 100 million doesn't seem that many to plant in a year.

Good link! The above article says that:

About 1.5 million people were involved in the huge plantation campaign, in which saplings were placed along the Narmada river in the state of Madhya Pradesh throughout Sunday.

Now wouldn't it be good if NZ could get 1.5 million people together at the one time! Perhaps the huge population of India allows a project like this to be done, but with our 5 million people, we can't quite match India's population!

JimmyH

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#1888978 24-Oct-2017 21:19

We could..... if it was enough of a priority that we wanted to throw sufficient money, people and land at the problem.

But more materially, where is the government going to plant a billion trees, at what cost, and why?

Last time we had a forestry service doing this it was a disaster. Uneconomic plantations in silly places for political reasons, and it lost a fortune.

Just because they can, doesn't mean they should.

frednz

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#1888984 24-Oct-2017 21:27

JimmyH:

We could..... if it was enough of a priority that we wanted to throw sufficient money, people and land at the problem.

But more materially, where is the government going to plant a billion trees, at what cost, and why?

Last time we had a forestry service doing this it was a disaster. Uneconomic plantations in silly places for political reasons, and it lost a fortune.

Just because they can, doesn't mean they should.

When did this disaster happen?

I can understand that lots of trees planted could die off if the job wasn't done properly, but don't you think that NZ has quite large areas of unpopulated land that might be able to be successfully used for this purpose?

This topic has even made it to the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/new-zealand-aims-to-go-green-with-electricity-tree-planting/2017/10/24/1b9566ea-b884-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_story.html?utm_term=.273c65769a41

The above article mentions that:

She said the country will need to double the amount of trees it plants each year, a goal she said was “absolutely achievable” by using land that was marginal for farming animals.

So, there we are, it's "absolutely achievable"!

ANglEAUT

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#1888987 24-Oct-2017 21:28

frednz: ... Now wouldn't it be good if NZ could get 1.5 million people together at the one time! Perhaps the huge population of India ...

There is your disconnect. Google results currently state the population of India is 1.3 Billion. So they got 1% of the population to come together at the same time for the same goal. Getting 1% of the population together surely is a lot easier than 25%, no matter which country. While I would love to have many more trees in NZ, getting 1% together for this goal would be a very good start.

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wellygary

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#1888988 24-Oct-2017 21:33

We currently replant around 40,000 ha in pine each year

https://www.nzfoa.org.nz/images/stories/pdfs/2016-NEFD-report_web.pdf

At a stocking rate of around 1000 stems ( pine seedlings ) per ha, that's 40 million trees ,

The planting rates were near 100,000 ha or 100 million trees annually in the early to mid 1990s,

So it's not unfeasible to scale up to double or triple the current rate over a the next few years ,

frednz

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#1889008 24-Oct-2017 22:09

wellygary: We currently replant around 40,000 ha in pine each year

https://www.nzfoa.org.nz/images/stories/pdfs/2016-NEFD-report_web.pdf

At a stocking rate of around 1000 stems ( pine seedlings ) per ha, that's 40 million trees ,

The planting rates were near 100,000 ha or 100 million trees annually in the early to mid 1990s,

So it's not unfeasible to scale up to double or triple the current rate over a the next few years ,

Good link, but how many people need to be involved in planting 274,000 trees per day? What is the success rate likely to be?

For people not involved with forestry, the figures blow the mind, the first thought is, how could you possibly plant more than one quarter of a million trees a day?

Can anyone shed any light on the processes and planning that is needed to plant such a huge number of trees every day?

wellygary

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#1889022 24-Oct-2017 22:43

A good Canuck can plant north of 1000 trees per day

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3Pdg2Xq5Hz00lfJfKvsdBkq/tree-planting-canada

I imagine the planting rates in nz are similar, so 300 people should be able to plant 275,000 tree per day....

Geektastic

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#1889045 25-Oct-2017 01:14

Plant them where?

Dratsab

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#1889051 25-Oct-2017 05:17

Geektastic: Plant them where?

In the ground :-)

Dratsab

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#1889052 25-Oct-2017 05:23

frednz:

wellygary: We currently replant around 40,000 ha in pine each year

https://www.nzfoa.org.nz/images/stories/pdfs/2016-NEFD-report_web.pdf

At a stocking rate of around 1000 stems ( pine seedlings ) per ha, that's 40 million trees ,

The planting rates were near 100,000 ha or 100 million trees annually in the early to mid 1990s,

So it's not unfeasible to scale up to double or triple the current rate over a the next few years ,

Good link, but how many people need to be involved in planting 274,000 trees per day? What is the success rate likely to be?

For people not involved with forestry, the figures blow the mind, the first thought is, how could you possibly plant more than one quarter of a million trees a day?

Can anyone shed any light on the processes and planning that is needed to plant such a huge number of trees every day?

I imagine that mechanical planters would/could play a huge role in this.

eracode

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#1889054 25-Oct-2017 06:47

Fly over the target area in a Cessna and throw handfulls of tree seeds out the window - throw 274,000 seeds each day in an hour each day and the job’s a good ‘un. Two-person job. Tick that box.

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

robjg63

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#1889075 25-Oct-2017 07:35

Even an aspirational target is better than doing nothing.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

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