History of Aerial Reforestation
Alvia Gaskill
>
> since about 3 weeks I try to follow the communication of the "Google
> geoengineering group".
> In the discussion of reforestation I learnt from M. Alamaro that he had
> the idea to do this from an airplane.
> I am holding such a model canister in my hands.
> According to his explanations I am sure this would work.
> If you think this comment is worthwhile you may forward it to the group.
>
> Greetings from Germany
>
> Juergen Michele.
>
> PS:
> I am working on a paper on cloud generation using an "upwards directed
> artificial free jet"
>
>
> HTTP://BLDGBLOG.BLOGSPOT.COM/2005/10/TREE-BOMBS.HTML
>
>
> TREE BOMBS
> As if BLDGBLOG could serve as an I Ching forecast, two earlier posts
> merged in real life: while we were off soil-bombing Iceland, MIT's Moshe
> Alamaro - of the famed anti-hurricane jet engine barges - was strafing the
> earth with tree seeds.
> Aerial reforestation.
> Back in 1997, Alamaro "designed conical canisters, of a starchy
> biodegradable material, which each contain a seedling packed in soil and
> nutrients. The canisters are dropped from a low-flying plane, so that they
> hit the ground at 200 m.p.h., and imbed themselves in the soil. Then the
> canisters decompose and the young trees take root. A large aircraft could
> drop as many as 100,000 saplings in a single flight: Alamaro's system
> could plant as many as a million trees in one day."
> Whole forests, fired from F-16s.
> Stealth forestry.
>
> http://alamaro.home.comcast.net/~alamaro/Alamaro-bio.htm
>
>
Moshe Alamaro | |
 |
Harvard-MIT Division of Health
|
Mr. Alamaro, a US citizen, received the Mechanical Engineer's Degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, M.S. in Atmospheric Sciences from MIT and B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Until recently he has been a visiting scientist at the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.
Recognitions and
Awards
MIT Inventor
of the Week (December 1997) for developing a concept for aerial reforestation
that addresses climate change and the emerging market for carbon sequestering
credit.
http://www.quasar.ualberta.ca/edse456/apt/vignettes/alamaro.htm
|
Moshe Alamaro: Aerial Reforestation By Heather Clark Trees play a major role in biotic communities around the world. They perform many roles from cleaning our air by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide that is in the atmosphere, to preventing erosion as well as providing habitats for a variety of animals. They are a valuable resource! Many forests, including the rainforests, are being destroyed from a number of things including human activity and the lumber industry. How do we replace the hundreds of acres of trees that are being destroyed every minute when a single human can only plant 1000 trees a day? Jack Walters began work on a project that Moshe Alamaro would later complete. Walters and the US Manufacturer Lockheed Martin Aerospace had the idea to use military aircrafts, normally used to lay landmines across combat zones, to plant seedlings. Walters, though onto the idea, would need Alamaro to bring the invention to life. Moshe Alamaro, a graduate student at Massachusetts Institute, developed the idea that tree seedlings, packed in canisters with soil and nutrients, could be planted by dropping them out of an airplane. Moshe was not an ecologist by background; he was an aeronautical engineer and it is the skills that the gained with that background that helped him solve the dilemma of reforestation. The pointed canisters would implant in the soil when dropped but soon after would decompose. The canisters are made out of a starchy biodegradable substance that could be broken down by bacteria found in water and soil. Moshe also developed a way to make sure that the trees were in fact growing. He designed an airborne surveillance system that would monitor the early growth of the trees Dropping the canisters out of the plane, would help facilitate planting on different surfaces that might be hard to reach, such as mountain cliffs. Using this method, as many as 100,000 saplings could be planted in one flight and over 900,000 trees could be planted in one day! Questions 1. What implications might this discovery have on current conservation techniques? 2. To whom should the invention be credited? 3. What are some arguments against the proposed method of planting? 4. What does Moshe’s background demonstrate about a career or discovery in science? References http://web.mit.edu/invent/www/inventorsA-H/moshe.html http://www.inventorsmuseum.com/alamaro.htm http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1590/n12_v54/20474331/p1/article.html http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/ http://www.ciensin.org/docs/002-111/002-111.html © Heather Clark. Reprinted with permission from Heather Clark. All rights reserved. |
http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/alamaro.html
As most people are aware, millions of acres of
forest have been destroyed in the last century, due not only to
humans---most notably the lumber industry---but also to climatic
change and forest fires. Traditional reforestation methods, tedious
and time-consuming, can replace only a tiny percentage of these
trees. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1590/is_n12_v54/ai_20474331
Bombs away! - innovative concept of planting tree saplings via biodegradable plastic cones dropped by plane - Brief Article
Maria L. ChangWhat's the fastest way to plant a forest? Grab a plane and drop bombs. No, not the explosive kind, but a bomb even a mom could love--tree bombs!
Engineer Moshe Alamaro of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has come up with cone-shaped canisters made of biodegradable plastic. That means the plastic is naturally broken down by bacteria in soil and water--it doesn't harm the environment. Then Alamaro packs year-old tree saplings, water, and nutrients in the canisters.
Alamaro's bombs still haven't flown yet--he's trying to get funding for his project. But here's his scenario: When high-flying planes drop the bombs over hard-to-reach terrain like mountains, the cones hurtle to the ground, where their sharp points pierce the soil. Within a few days, the plastic canisters degrade and saplings spread their roots.
"It's a neat concept," says Frank Burch of the U.S. Forest Service in Washington, D.C. But trying to reseed bare mountains by plane is no picnic. Shortly after World War II, foresters attempted aerial reseeding in the U.S. But the project bombed. Mice and gophers gobbled up most seeds and their populations exploded. So most trees were nipped in the bud. Now one option is to coat tree seeds, with pesticide to repel hungry rodents.
Once saplings sprout into young trees, they're an environmental dream. Their roots hold on to the soil to keep it from eroding, or wearing away. They also soak up rain that might otherwise flood lowland areas.
Alamaro envisions his tree bombs waging an even larger environmental baffle. He wants to combat global warming. One of the major culprits is carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas" that traps heat in the atmosphere, raising the Earth's temperature. Trees readily absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through their leaves. They use the carbon along with hydrogen from water to make glucose sugar--their own tree food.
Experts estimate that a pine-tree forest twice the size of Alaska could offset the amount of carbon humans spew into the atmosphere.
Obviously, this is one case in which almost anyone would agree: Drop those bombs!
FAST FACT
A single plane could plant as many as 100,000 trees in one flight.
Between 1980 and 1965, rain forests were destroyed at a rate of 72 acres a minute!
Human activities--like burning gasoline and coal--emit 7 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year.
COPYRIGHT 1998 Scholastic, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/1999/sep/02/paulbrown
Aerial bombardment to reforest the earth
- Paul Brown, Environment Correspondent
- The Guardian,
- Thursday September 2 1999
- Article history
An idea, originally from a former RAF pilot, Jack Walters, of Bridgnorth, Shropshire, has been developed by the US manufacturer Lockheed Martin Aerospace so that 900,000 young trees can be planted in a day.
A company set up to market the idea, Aerial Forestation Inc, of Newton, Massachusetts, believes that companies with polluting power plants will be forced by governments to plant forests to offset the global warming effect of the carbon dioxide they emit. Planting via the C-130s will halve the cost of manual methods.
Peter Simmons, from Lockheed, said: "Equipment we developed for precision planting of fields of landmines can be adapted easily for planting trees.
"There are 2,500 C-130 transport aircraft in 70 countries, so the delivery system for planting forests is widely available - mostly mothballed in military hangers waiting for someone to hire them.
"The possibilities are amazing. We can fly at 1,000ft at 130 knots planting more than 3,000 cones a minute in a pattern across the landscape - just as we did with landmines, but in this case each cone contains a sapling. That's 125,000 trees for each sortie and 900,000 trees in a day."
The tree cones are pointed and designed to bury themselves in the ground at the same depth as if they had been planted by hand. They contain fertilizer and a material that soaks up surrounding moisture, watering the roots of the tree.
The containers are metal but rot immediately so the tree can put its roots into the soil.
Moshe Alamaro for Aerial Forestation was in Bridgnorth last week visiting Dr Walters, who published his idea in a paper 25 years ago while at the university of British Columbia in Canada.
Mr Alamaro said: "We are seriously considering contacting British royalty and recommending that Jack is knighted.
"It was a great idea, which he tested at the time and found it worked, but the technology was not up to the job. Now with metal that biodegrades at once as it hits the soil, we are planting the trees and giving them a head start all at once."
Dr Walters said: "I am delighted the idea has been taken seriously. I did the preliminary tests to make sure the trees survived the fall, and it all worked. But I hadn't any money for a development budget.
"Moshe read about my work in the scientific literature and came to see me."
He said a man on the ground can plant 1,000 trees a day. "If we are going to combat global warming by collecting carbon in the wood of trees, we will want millions of them a year. Airborne planting is probably the only way."
Mr Alamaro believes that the system will work in any area that used to contain trees, and even in desert areas where the cones can be adapted to plant suitable shrubs. He has a pilot project planned for the Sinai desert in Egypt.
"One of the areas we are interested in is the Scottish mountains which used to be forested and could be again. We have already talked to landowners, and they are a bit worried about local resistance because people have got used to seeing the hills bare. We could replant the native forest very quickly."
He also hopes to replant large areas of the Black Forest cut down during the cold war to provide "line of sight" across the iron curtain between east and west Germany, and is exploring contracts in north Africa, the tundra of Canada, Australia and the US.
In five years he believes that his company could be planting a billion trees a year - enough to reforest 3,000 square miles.
Teddy Kinyanjui
Ronal W. Larson
Dear all,I have been making charcoal cookstoves in Kenya for many years now, (www.cookswell.co.ke) and also have been thinking about innovative forestry methods to ensure a sustainable supply of woodfuel for Kenyans. Currently there is a huge biomass energy deficit and massive replanting needs to undertaken for future bioenergy security.
With the Woodlands 2000 Trust we have been conducting many experiments with dryland afforestation and one thing I have noticed is that acacia spp. grow faster when directly seeded. I think this has much to do with nursery fatigue, root curling and the difference with above and below ground biomass ratios etc.Also, by most major highways, there are always many acacia trees that grow on the road reserve from seeds that were blown out of trucks caring building sand harvested from rivers.
On this premise I have scouring the internet for articles about aerial tree seeding in the tropics and have found many interesting ideas/experiences. Basically the seeds should be treated with coating to reply predators (mice, insects etc.) the timing and land condition/moisture is critical and lastly, there are very few empirical studies on this in East Africa.
Due to a lack of funds to rent an airplane for trials I have friends who are paragliders and have been doing some trials or carbon neutral aerial seeding around Laikipia with mixed results.I think that in a country like Kenya, if every NGO/AID flight, tourist game park transfers and political rally flights were inclined to throw out a handful of acacia seeds during every flight - millions of tree could be planted. This would also create a demand for indigenous tree seeds and farmers could have further not to cut down indigenous trees but to keep them as seed orchards.In the meantime, I throw seeds out of the car window when it looks like rain.
Any feedback would be fantastic -
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Teddy Kinyanjui
As many as six locations, Kailasagiri, Marikavalasa, Simhachalam, Yarada and two places in Bheemili have been identified for the aerial seeding in which 1,980 hectares of land will be treated. About 19.8 tonnes of Vepa, Chinta, Subabul, Nallatumma, Rela and Gliricidia seeds will be used. The forest officials said that the seeds had been palletised mechanically to protect the seed from predators, pests and insect damage. It also increases the chances of seed survival and germination.
The officials said that 15 varieties of seeds of about 41,000 kg had been accumulated for aerial seeding, including two other manual techniques like scooping & dibbling and broadcasting. For scooping and dibbling, the officials identified 11 locations in which around 890 hectares of area will be treated with 8.9 tonnes of seed like Kanuga, hill mango, Yegisa, Nallamaddi and Kunkudu. While for broadcasting, five locations have been identified in which 450 hectares of area will be treated with 4.5 tonnes of seeds like Vepa, Nallatumma, Sisso, Dirisenam and Kunkudu.''
Teddy Kinyanjui
Rationale
Restoring tropical forests is of huge economic and ecological importance; to mitigate climate change, avert biodiversity losses, stabilize watersheds and supply forest products and services. In 2014, the UN called for forest restoration over 350 million ha by 2030, but how could it be done on such a vast scale? Most accessible land is already cultivated, leaving only remote sites for forest restoration. People are reluctant to carry trees and materials long distances across rugged terrain. The labour needed for tree planting, weeding, fertilizer application and monitoring often exceeds the local supply. Workers are unwilling to do such laborious and low paid work.Tropical forest restoration techniques have advanced considerably over the past 20 years. In many areas, we now know which tree species to plant, when to collect seeds, how to grow planting stock and how to plant and maintain trees, until canopy closure and biodiversity recovery occur. But implementation still relies largely on Stone-Age technologies – hauling tree saplings and materials on foot, over long distances, across rough terrain.
"If we are to achieve the UN goal, forest restoration practices must be dragged
out of the Stone Age and into the Drone Age."
Therefore, in this brainstorming workshop, we invited restoration ecologists and technologists to explore the potential for "auto-restoration". We developed a research agenda, for the next 5 years which we hope will turn AFR from a pipedream into reality, by improving drone and visual recognition technologies and combining them with proven forest restoration practices.
Some of the questions addressed at the workshop were: could a new generation of autonomous "dendrones" spot seed trees and transmit their GPS co-ordinates to seed collectors? Or could they collect seeds themselves with robotic arms? How about aerial seeding by drones or even auto-weeding? Could drones be programmed to spray a non-residual, systemic herbicide on weeds, without harming young trees?Objectives:
1) to assess the current states of technologies that could be used to automate forest restoration tasks and identify limitations or gaps in those technologies;
2) to design research programs to improve technologies or combine them in innovative ways, leading to prototypes for testing;
3) to evaluate the feasibility of automated forest restoration from technical, ecological and socio-economic perspectives and
4) to facilitate collaboration among technologists and restoration ecologists and the formation of interdisciplinary research teams.
Outputs:
1) A research agenda, for the advancement of automated forest restoration, 2015-2020, based on the expertise of a quorum of technologists and restoration ecologists.
2) Material for the first edition of a multi-authored textbook on “Automated Forest Restoration”
Format
The workshop comprisd introductory presentations, by leading technologists and ecologists on the current state of technologies that could be used to automate various forest restoration tasks. Subsequently participants contributed to breakout discussion sessions to decide on research topics of most importance in advancing AFR. A field day to view restoration plots and demonstrate drone technology was included. Participants voted to prioritize research proposals on the final day.
Topics will included:
1) auto-seed collection- combining UAV1technologies with plant-recognition software to locate seed trees;
3) auto-weed control – combining UAV and plant-recognition technologies to spray weeds with non-residual, herbicide, without harming trees, and/or developing herbicides, which kill weeds but not trees, and/or selecting herbicide-resistant trees;
4) auto fertilizer application– using UAV’s to deliver precise fertilizer doses to trees and
5) auto-monitoring– using UAV’s, with plant-recognition software, to assess tree survival/ growth, canopy closure, plant diversity recovery and using remote cameras and/or microphones to monitor recolonization of restored plots by bird/mammal species
An optional extra Master Class on drone building was run after the main workshop closed. Our tutor was Mr Lot Amoros, artist, engineer and master drone builder. You can view his previous work here: https://vimeo.com/77119470, https://vimeo.com/54890280.
Lot Amorós made his debut in the art world by programming reactive visual algorithms for live performances. He investigates the intervention of technology in the physical world, focussing on use of public air space and practical applications of unmanned aerial vehicles. He has developed data visualization interfaces, mixed reality performances and interactive audiovisual instruments. As an activist for open-source software and public data, he creates public-access wireless networks and disruptive devices. His creations have been exhibited in Brazil, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Egypt, and Spain.
Outputs of the workshop can be viewed here and if you have any questions about the workshop, please email the workshop secretariat: On Wednesday, September 17, 2008 at 3:34:03 AM UTC+3, Alvia Gaskill wrote: