Drones Plant Thousands of Trees a Day in Myanmar

People have said it’s time to declare war on climate change, but using drone strikes to plant trees might not be quite what militant carbon-cutting activists had in mind. According to Good, the 2018 project is showing results that could lead to positive changes both in methods and in scales of success around the world.

Bombing Forests Into Being?

The project was created as a way to take back areas of Myanmar that are remote, and which are experiencing desertification. The initial bombardment planted thousands of seeds, which are now growing into mangrove trees. With the proof-of-concept showing that these drones (and their payloads) work, the nation is looking at scaling up their operation to take back bare and damaged parts of their country.

To put this in perspective, the area of Myanmar for reseeding could house roughly a billion trees, about the physical size of the state of Rhode Island. Tackling this job the old-fashioned way, even with a large team of people using modern forestry equipment, would take years. However, a small team of operators using these drones could drop over 400,000 seeds a day. That’s an efficiency of manpower, and aerial superiority, that simply couldn’t be achieved any other way.

More to the point, it can reach the one billion trees landmark in a reasonable period, without leaving teams stationed in remote parts of the country for years on end.

Is This A War We Can Win?

While there are armies of people all around the world who are planting trees with their hands and sweat, the sheer amount of seed these drones can drop in a fraction of the time could be a time turner. Especially when considering they can fly over remote areas that would be difficult (or impossible) for people on the ground to access.

If Myanmar’s success is duplicated around the world, then planting billions of trees and reforesting the planet isn’t just a pipe dream; it’s something that could be accomplished in a few years. At least, if everyone joined forces on the same front.