In the Raining Forests episode, the project earth team focuses on replanting vast forests with saplings. Instead of the normal traditional means with hands and shovels, the team plans to plant entire forests high above the ground in a helicopter. Being high above has its advantages, it is easier to disperse the fauna over a larger area in less time.As forests are replanted, they absorb large quantities of carbon dioxide as the newly planted trees grow.
The Raining Forests episode of Project Earth premieres on August 29th at 9:00 pm EST on the Discovery Channel.
Update from the show: The Project Earth team tackles deforestation in Raining Rainforests. Current estimates say a forest the size of West Virginia is lost every year. In order to keep up with this trend, a forest twice the size of Manhattan must be replanted every day to be effective.
The team plans to test their replanting theory in the Mississippi delta. Recent hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, destroyed over 320 million trees by blowing them down or poisoning them with salt water.
Since Mangrove trees are native to the Mississippi delta, the Project Earth team will attempt to repopulate an island with Mangrove propagules.
Mangrove forests have decresed by 20% all over the world since the eighties, faster than rain forests. Mangroves are the most cost effective since they absorb a very large amount of carbon dioxide. Although, this design can be changed to accomodate any tree for any ecosystem.
The Project Earth team plans to drop propagules out from a plane. They estimate that a 4 foot spread pattern is needed if the propagules are to have optimum forest growing conditions.
It turned out that an airplane was too dangerous since the spread pattern was not optimal since the plane had to travel very slowly. The risk of the airplane stalling was too great so the team had to settle on using helicopters.
After a few tests to see how they would drop the propagules from the helicopters, the team decided to use large nets hanging below the helicopters. After the propagules were dropped from the helicopters, the project earth team would reconvene a the site three months later to see if any of the trees were still alive.
Even with all the effort and planning, the propagules were unable to take root after three months. The project earth team decided that their current ideas on this project will need some fine tuning since nothing was able to take root.
7 comments:
I watch the episode and I was impressed with the idea. I'd like to know if any additional testing on the soil or plants were dont after the 3 month period to find out what went wrong. the soil balls didnt look as strong as the one intially created and the seeds my have suffered significant trama from such a high impact. like they say "its not the fall that kills you its the sudden stop." anyway thank you soo much for the idea please keep trying.
So I watched this episode after watching the one with the wind generators and I noticed that when Dr. Singer went to the University of Victoria in this episode they used what looked like the EXACT same program that they used in the wind powered episode which was at the University of Nice. Now I don't know about you but flying a film crew and doctor/actor to two places nearly half way around the world for basically the same thing seems a little silly. Also, I feel like they should have looked into using a C-47 Chinook for their delivery platform. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CH-47_Chinook. With this aircraft they could make a larger version of the delivery system they used at the very beginning of the episode. They also should have tried to plant a "control" by hand to see if these plants can still grow there. Anyways, I liked this episode and think that with more thought this idea could help, maybe not fix everything, but at least help.
Blimps or hot air balloons make more sense.
After watching this episode, I remembered a show where the person was making a ball of clay, in it was a seed. This clay ball then was scattered in a field. Could this method work to reforest?
Out of curiosity, does anyone know how to get in touch with the designers/engineers of this projects idea. After watching this program a few times, I actually have some ideas for the deployment method and design and would love to discuss it with them. Thanks.
plz plant the trees by hand it self. its easy & safe & of low cost . we cut tress with our hand so do it with our hand ...7 if u need help plz contact me... thank u
A much belated reply. I am the “scientist” in the “Raining Forests” episode. To answer a few questions and perhaps resurrect and redirect the effort, see the following.
1.) An ideal drop zone had been secured from Conoco Philips HQ, Houston. More inland and site of other ongoing research on mangroves. Impossible Pictures directors relicocated the drop zone to the hurricane-caused blowout on Trinity Island. White sand, pristine and nothing growing on it. The huge volume of sand was dredged and placed by the Army Corps of Engineers. Absolutely nithing was growing on it as it had high salinity and petrochemical content. Poison. My post-drop return site visit footage was much-edited. Reason for last-minute relocation of drop site was that the original site wouldn’t look good on TV. Science meets circus - and loses.
2.) CH-47, UH-60 and C-130 aircraft were the preferred options - but unavailable as the misadventures in IRG and AFG were well underway. All aircraft were deployed or being repaired or upgraded. That said, use of Southern Helicopters’ two Bell-205s and one 206 were good for demonstration purposes - and at that point C-130s, UH-60s and or CH-47s would have been theatrically impressive - but also monumental overkill. Per hour costs would also have been5 to 10 X for the larger military aircraft.
3.) I am currently resurrecting the project approach and am targeting mangroves, sea grass (Spartina sp.) and a coastal bamboo sp. (Arundinaria gigantea.) indigenous to the US. Restoration and recovery of coastal lands, habitat for coastal species if plants, animals and insects (primarily pollinators) and very importantly absorption of kinetic energy of tidal surge and tsunamis are the primary targets. Means of delivery will include aircraft, shallow draft vessels, large, noise-suppressed airboats, and several types of mud and upland vehicles further inland.
Much more to share with interested and credible parties, on signing of a short mutual nondisclosure agreement.
Semper fidelis,
Mark Hodges
Gainesville, FL
EFOLLC@gmail.com
SDVOSB
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