cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/58909207
Mass tree planting in China is turning one of the world’s largest and driest deserts into a carbon sink, meaning it absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits, new research reveals.
“We found, for the first time, that human-led intervention can effectively enhance carbon sequestration in even the most extreme arid landscapes, demonstrating the potential to transform a desert into a carbon sink and halt desertification,” study co-author Yuk Yung, a professor of planetary science at Caltech and a senior research scientist in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Live Science in an email.
While I applaud any government for attempting to better the environment, I really wish this project was done with more forethought.
Unfortunately they have done this forestation primarily with fast growing poplar and willow trees, making a vast monoculture that wont likely last in such a harsh climate for more than a decade.
Without the natural biodiversity that supports a living Forrest ecology, it only takes one disease or pest to wipe all that effort. In the end it might do more harm than good when considering the amount of ground water something like this will take out of the water cycle.
Yes, but both tree species tend to live fast and die young, so they can be used to provide first-generation forest protection until the second-generation trees can grow up.