Even after a forest has been razed and cleared, it can return. With tech and patience, some projects are helping forests reclaim their old territories. Half a millennia ago, forests covered much of the Iberian peninsula. But that soon changed. Centuries of wars and invasions, agricultural expansion and woodcutting for charcoal and shipping wiped out […]
An investment of €12.5 million in sustainable Irish forestry has been announced by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB). Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan said that with controversy growing about monoculture and clear felling policies in Ireland it is a welcome support for the more sustainable “continuous cover forestry” projects which would […]
On an alarming note, forest degradation continues even though the global rate of deforestation have halved over the last two decades—from a net annual forest area loss of 7.3 million hectares in 2000 to 3.3 million hectares in 2015. This was one of the key messages delivered at the international conference on halting deforestation and […]
There is a frightful interval between the seed and the timber.” So said the 18th-century wit and writer Samuel Johnson, but wait patiently for your forest to flourish and you could see a significant return on your investment. Forestry has been the top-performing asset class in the UK over the past three years, with total […]
Dozens of mythologies and religions around the world consider trees sacred. Buddha, after achieving enlightenment, sat under a banyan tree for seven days. In the Garden of Eden, the two most important plants were the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In Celtic mythology, trees were of vital importance […]
For the first time, scientists have created a global map measuring the cooling effect forests generate by regulating the exchange of water and energy between Earth’s surface and the atmosphere. In many locations, this cooling effect works in concert with forests’ absorption of carbon dioxide. By coupling information from satellites with local data from sensors […]