Saturday, September 13, 2014

Ecological Vacancy, Afforesttation Required Urgently

Recently Nitin Gadkari announced plans to (effectively) plant a tree every 3 metres in 4 rows.
http://www.firstpost.com/blogs/200-crore-roadside-trees-how-nitin-gadkaris-math-is-flawed-1583195.html
Seems like Afforestt is the solution he had in mind to answer all the doubting-thomases in that article.


 Afforestt Natural Tiny Forests:
  1. Zero maintenance natural forest in just 2 years.
  2. Even small pieces of empty space are usable.
  3. Uses vertical space instead of horizontal space.
  4. Uses cheap, local and waste materials.
  5. Light watering (half of lawn) for first 2 years.
  6. Recharge Water Table due to Forest.
  7. Reduce Landslides along roads and rivers.
  8. Increase soil fertility by reducing erosion and acting as a wind-break
  9. Increase water retention by increasing shady areas (esp. around lakes and rivers)
  10. Encourages Natural Local species of plants, animals, insects and birds with high biodiversity.
  11. 100 year old forest in just 10 years.
  12. 10 times faster growth than conventional planting.
  13. Can be used in urban areas or as fruit sources in farms.
  14. 30 trees per 100 sft. instead of 1 trees/100 sft.
  15. Tiny Forest in apartments can absorb grey water.
  16. Afforresstt adapts Akira Miyawaki's Japanese methodology to work in tiny spaces.
  17. Afforestt is planning to release their methodology as open-source for anybody to implement and refine.
  18. Crowd-sourcing of resources (water, mulch, saplings), volunteer manpower and land using social media. See Part 2 of Let's Talk interview about Swechha FB Group's "Monsoon Wooding" initiative. 
  19.  

Sick animals instinctively find and eat herbs in the forests. Humans copied from them and reduced time and energy to recover from sickness or prevent it.

Pioneer species **create** environment for later species, so the only thing preventing the latter species from growing is a supporting environment. Fix that and the time gap can be radically reduced!!

For example in a natural forest, the layer of mulch would come from a pre-existing plant life. It's like playing a video backwards to uncover what succeeding species get from preceding ones.

A) Natural process :
A linear serial process satisfies preconditions slowly.
A=>B=>C=>D=>E=>FOREST

B) Afforestt process :
A parallel process satisfies preconditions simultaneously
A=>F
B=>O
C=>R
D=>E
E=>S
F=>T


C) Interaction Webs (like Food webs below) are dynamic, meshy and networked processes : http://www.thetrophiclink.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ballsandstick.jpg
"The more (the interactions) the merrier!!"
 
 














I remember in our house we didn't have many birds but lots of trees until we planted some thick flowering bushes in the patches between Subabul trees. So many birds showed up to take advantage of the cover!! It was really heartening.

So maybe the main reason why one method is slower is because of less diversity AND less interactions than required to support varied species' differing needs for food, shelter, security etc.
Liked this afforresttation method as the creation of micro-climate in the thick undergrowth makes it self-sustaining. The usage of local vegetation is also really very good.

Both methods allow for natural selection though as individual trees which die out are not replaced. Possibly that place is taken over by seeds left by birds which use the underlying brush for making nests etc.

Seems like a very good idea as you can achieve similar results over long term AND short term!! The usage of small strips of land makes it even more valuable.


See Also:


CrowdFunding Page for Swechha Monsoon Wooding at Bitgiving.com : https://www.bitgiving.com/project/index/id/BIT055

Akira Miyawaki  
+ Creating "Forests That Protect Lives" The Great East Japan Earthquake Recovery : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FH1rHhqs10
+ Making Forests of Life for the Ones You Love "The Green Tide Embankment" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nGr3LQxyyA

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