from Hacker News

Ask HN: Plant a Trillion Trees Campaign?

by mjfern on 7/5/19, 11:25 AM with 70 comments

• by napsterbr on 7/5/19, 1:37 PM

  Here's an idea to help "viralize" tree planting, especially among younger folks.

  How about a tree social network? A website/app that incentivices the person to plant a tree and adopt it as a pet. The person plants a tree, names it and takes a few photos. A profile is then created.

  The person can find nearby trees to socialize. Some cute artwork may help engaging people. Snapchat-like filters could be used to "dress up" the tree, further increasing cuteness (and the engagement).

  People keep score by how many trees they've planted, which gamifies the process.

  This may sound crazy (and possibly it is) but hey, it may just work.

  If you (or anyone else) like the idea, I'd be more than happy to help build it, with the condition that it should be open source. Email is on profile.

  ETA: Open source condition

• by nscalf on 7/5/19, 1:20 PM

  This seems really interesting, and it obviously is important to be done. Something to note is that you'll likely need to buy up land to make sure it is secure when trees are planted. If you plan to buy swathes of land out of country, how do you deal with tree poachers? Probably your best bet is to buy in-country land and plant trees there. Perhaps do some research on what trees are more effective for carbon fixing.

  And, of course, if you can find a way to make an economy around buying trees without destroying them, you'll have the most success. I've been trying to think of a good way to make an economy around that, but haven't come up with anything good. Maybe eco-tourism is the best option?

  Send me a message, I'd be glad to chat more about this.

• by 8bitsrule on 7/5/19, 10:58 PM

  Today I discovered the 'Billion Tree Campaign' was started by the UN in 2006. Wiki says they'd planted 15B trees in 193 countries by 2018 (315M in the US).

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_Tree_Campaign

  Looks like the UN handed the program to 'Plant for the Planet' (Germany) in 2011.

  'https://www.plant-for-the-planet.org/en/home

  It'd be fantastic to see this organized nationwide in the U.S. ... and promoted as part of the campaign.

  P.S. This video, 'Planting Bare Root Trees With A Dibble', shows how very easy it can be to plant a seedling. Anyone can learn it in a short time.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhqa3yeLxhk

• by moneytide1 on 7/5/19, 4:05 PM

  Perhaps your website could provide coordination with land owners to show which areas are eligible for tree planting. People could even use an app to designate which areas they intend to plant on, and mark as complete. New areas would be opened up as more municipalities (or private land owners) jump on board. There is already a federal effort for tree planting, as my family owns some hunting land that they are paid to keep trees growing (likely for local soil/water retention efforts)

  This wouldn't be the first time people have banded together for "Emergency Conservation Work" (FDR administration 5 billion trees):

  https://treesource.org/news/lands/ccc-tree-planting/

  I've had decent success planting things after amending the soil where the rootball is expected to be. This involves removing some of the clay-like soil and replacing with both seasoned and fresh compost. Planting a trillion trees within a rather urgent window of time may not be eligible for this sort of micromanagement (plus the root system of a tree will be quite large), but I still like the idea of spending free time doing this sort of thing.

• by chewz on 7/6/19, 9:29 AM

  Poland is paying up to 2000 euro per ha for converting agriculture land into forrest. There is also a lot of additional subsidies for forrests on private land which can add up to few thousand euro.

  You can actually make small but stable profit from buying land and converting into forest.

  > Priority will be given to those who intend to plant a forest in the so-called ecological corridors, in areas threatened by water erosion, in areas adjacent to inland waters and forests, in areas with a slope of more than 12 degrees. Also, those who have land for afforestation in voivodships with a forest cover of less than 30% will get points. Depending on the species composition of the crop and the previously mentioned criteria, the amount of support can range from PLN 4,984 to PLN 7,624 per hectare. In addition, payment is possible for fencing of crops.

  Assigned budget 2014-2020 for this project is 300 milion euro.

  I believe there are similar schemes in other EU countries.

  Link in Polish: http://www.lasy.gov.pl/pl/informacje/aktualnosci/jak-zdobyc-...

• by aoeaoeaoe on 7/5/19, 4:29 PM

  Helping a planet that already helps itself.

  "Here we analyse 35 years’ worth of satellite data and provide a comprehensive record of global land-change dynamics during the period 1982–2016. We show that—contrary to the prevailing view that forest area has declined globally—tree cover has increased by 2.24 million km2 (+7.1% relative to the 1982 level). This overall net gain is the result of a net loss in the tropics being outweighed by a net gain in the extratropics."

  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0411-9

  Human, an fascinating animal yet with such a high opinion of itself.

• by kingkawn on 7/6/19, 2:23 AM

  Information, live maps updating us moment to moment where new trees are going in, a way to communicate with others about planting methods, suppliers of hardware, and nurseries or seed providers, a network that is solely dedication to the actualization of the idea as seamlessly as is possible. Make an action network of steps and allow people to volunteer to be assigned a role at some geographic radius they preselect. The entire process can be organized to have everyone as effectively as possible making it happen. Hopefully the possibility of actually resolving climate change in a tangible way would help it spread and everyone could get involved together and be proud that, regardless of everything else that’s wrong, we actually got together and did something good.

• by jbob2000 on 7/5/19, 4:14 PM

  Trees plant themselves, they have been doing so for hundreds of thousands of years.

  It would take a serious amount of carbon for humans to do this task for mother nature - we need trucks to transport the seeds and soil to where we want them planted, we need to grow food so the human can eat to get energy to plant the seeds.

  The best thing we can do is let mother nature grow. Build up instead of out and stop deforesting for farm land.

• by mjfern on 7/5/19, 1:19 PM

  As someone pointed out in another thread, a campaign already exists at https://www.trilliontreecampaign.org. That said, this isn't providing the information that I'm looking for.

• by fghtr on 7/5/19, 3:57 PM

  >Which of the nonprofits was the best run?

  One can try to search for corresponding nonprofits with https://CharityNavigator.org. For example, there are

  https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summar...

  https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summar...

  and more...

• by fiberhood on 7/6/19, 7:58 AM

  I'm interested in partnering. I envision it as crowdfunding surrounded with some form of community. Buy up land, plant trees, webcams and video's to visit it, excursions to go there for a picknick. I love the idea tho give each tree an email/web/chat address.

  But also plant solar panels. Conservation, buy or lease pieces of rainforest that need protecting. Attract the money from carbon tax, emission rights, companies and governments that want to greenwash their reputation. I have been inspired to work on this ever since seeing [1] when I was 10 years old. My grandfather bought a forest and walked me through it when I was a 4 year old boy. It instilled the idea of stewardship for our planet. And then there is the (mythical) 500 year old tree story about New College, Oxford to inspire [2]. A trillion trees is not enough, there are 3 trillion already, we need to double that [3]. When I go on walks I'll check up on all the trees my mom or dad and I talked about. I'll visit them, rather then their graves.

  [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTvYh8ar3tc

  [2]https://cherwell.org/2013/10/08/cameron-in-tory-conference-o...

  [3] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Thomas_Crowther/publica...

• by nickwarren on 7/5/19, 8:33 PM

  I’m playing with the idea of a trees4travel nonprofit. Eco-conscious individuals or business that requires employees to travel can quickly using some basic information make a donation to plant trees/take other climate change action in order to offset the impact of that flight - in an effort to become carbon neutral/negative.

  LMK if this is interesting at all, anyone is free to partner or run with it - whatever to help the climate

• by chewz on 7/6/19, 12:35 PM

  China has announced plans to plant new forests in 2018 that will cover at least 6.6 million hectares, an area roughly the size of Ireland.

  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/05/china-plant-fore...

• by nickserv on 7/5/19, 5:35 PM

  Just plant some trees, it's easy:

  - Gather seeds from native species in your area.

  - place 2-3 large seeds or 5-10 smaller seeds in a pot. I use old 1l milk containers.

  - Put the pots outside, a terrace or balcony will do.

  - As soon as the seeds sprout, find a spot to plant. Can be natural (prairie, forest, ..) or not (parks, roundabouts, parking lots, yards,medians,...). Just ask for permission if planting on private property.

  - Go back during dry spells or heatwaves and water them.

  - Profit?

• by agilvarry on 7/5/19, 2:20 PM

  Personally, I use https://www.ecosia.org/(who would probably be a great company to try and partner with) as my web browser since they donate most of their profits to tree planting operations, and I give some money every month to Eden Project, who have been planting trees for a very long time and seem to have a good reputation.

  If you're interested in helping out with their efforts it might be worth reaching out to trillion tree campaign. Their website really needs some work, but they've already done a lot of good work with some really big organizations. No need to re-do work when there is something already out there that you could potentially help expand on.

• by buboard on 7/6/19, 9:22 AM

  Most people are going to plant a tree in the middle of nowhere, take a few selfies, and then leave it to die or be eaten.

  Or they 'll plant too many trees in their backyard, which they will have to cut as soon as they grow too much, because it's annoying/inconvenient

• by hkyeti on 7/5/19, 4:42 PM

  If we care about trees work on stopping the number one cause of deforestation - meat.

• by tathagatadg on 7/7/19, 12:21 AM

  Can trees be uniquely identified? If yes, use tree-fingerprint and incentivize increasing age of unique trees. In return you get carbon offset credits that you can sell to make money. Like crypto, but greener.

  EDIT: grammar

• by sansnomme on 7/6/19, 11:29 AM

  Better, build an API for planting trees. Plenty of hipster SaaSes would be happy to add a "We will plant one tree for every subscription" slogan to their landing page.

• by chewz on 7/6/19, 12:19 PM

  Forrest area in Poland is growing since WWII from 20,8% in 1946 to 29,5% in 2016. The target for 2020 is 30% area of the country under forrest and for 2050 - 33%.

  80% of forrests in Poland is under management of Lasy Panstwowe - state-owned company with political reach.

  https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasy_w_Polsce

  https://lasy.gov.pl

• by vinayms on 7/7/19, 2:07 PM

  I think the correct way to go about this is to just encourage people to plant trees suitable and native to their (people's) environment. And let it scale. Better, also tell them not to fell trees left right and center.

  In the exuberance of ecological conservation and all that, we must not overlook and override what nature would have done. For instance, one shouldn't plant a water sucking tree where it wouldn't naturally occur, and damage the balance.

• by teknico on 7/6/19, 2:34 PM

  I wanted to donate to such a non-profit and I found three comparison websites, quite different from each other, that all recommended Trees for the Future: http://trees.org/ .

  They've been working for twenty years, already planted 150 million trees, and most importantly, train people in Africa to create forest gardens while lifting themselves out of poverty.

  Now they plant eight trees per day for me too. <3

• by squish78 on 7/5/19, 5:35 PM

  Many US states have forestry services which will send you free or inexpensive native saplings.

  A few examples:

  http://www.gatrees.org/reforestation/ordering-information/ https://www.tn.gov/agriculture/forests/seedlings.html

• by bozoUser on 7/6/19, 8:24 PM

  how can one find areas in the bay area to go plan trees with a bunch of friends and not be associated with any campaigns etc?

  With varying local rules and regulations, plant species adaptability, invasive vs non-invasive species debate raging on, it would be great to have a website which gives you info. about the local areas in the range of 100 miles where one can go and plant trees with this information readily available;

  I would go one step ahead and propose to also have the saplings shipped or sold either from this website or have distribution centers/farms closer to the region where these saplings can be collected; these centers would be similar to your regular Home Depots etc. where you would have all the information readily available; One can also pay a subscription fees of 5$/month to have the farm take care of these saplings until it becomes self sufficient.

  Before someone asks about how we would raise the initial capital for these distribution centers is thru carbon tax/federal/state funds.

• by cwmoore on 7/5/19, 4:40 PM

  I once worked with a guy who'd coordinated planting on the ground with aerial seedling drops, saplings in cones from airplanes, as illustrated here:

  https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-scienc...

• by tmaly on 7/5/19, 4:29 PM

  I would recommend playing to peoples desires. People like beautiful yards and gardens, and you get people to plant more than just one tree if you educate them.

  Tell them they can make their place beautiful and fight climate change.

  I planted 6 evergreen bushes and 5 trees in just the past few months, and my yard is quite small.

• by _448 on 7/7/19, 8:26 PM

  A friend of mine created a subreddit* a while back to encourage people to plant one tree a year. Unfortunately, the subreddit did not get any traction.

  * https://www.reddit.com/r/a_tree_a_year

• by saluki on 7/7/19, 10:55 AM

  How about governments (counties/states) setting up areas that are memorial forests where people come and plant a tree or multiple trees for loved ones.

  Encourage people to plant trees for previous generations of family members. And have small in memory of markers for each tree.

• by martincollignon on 7/5/19, 5:00 PM

  You may find relevant people to partner with in this community: https://techimpactmakers.com/

  Among other projects they've already released climatechoices.co

• by Spooky23 on 7/6/19, 3:08 AM

  Cool idea. In my city, everyone is obsessed with cutting down trees because landlords don’t want to rake leaves and the utility company eviscerated many older trees.

• by AlleyTrotter on 7/5/19, 7:50 PM

  I have a dozen in my back yard I planted 20 years ago.

  Ahead of my time!

• by janfkowalski on 7/5/19, 11:35 AM

  How about contacting XR regarding your idea? Regards

• by mkbkn on 7/8/19, 2:48 PM

  I'm used to searching a lot on the Internet and thus have made Ecosia as my primary search engine.

  It plants trees from its ad revenues.

• by mcqueenjordan on 7/5/19, 11:12 PM

  I’d love to help partner on this. Coding, marketing, AWS hosting, whatever I can do. Email is in my profile.

• by Papirola on 7/6/19, 6:34 AM

  this is being done in Israel for decades: http://www.kkl-jnf.org/forestry-and-ecology/

• by jessehorne on 7/7/19, 3:08 AM

  I'm working on something similar because a while back, I was in a similar situation as you, and was curious. The plans are to allow users to have a neat looking visualization where every single tree that has been planted can be rendered depending on where they're viewing. You may see a lot with a green border that means we can fill that entire lot up. "Here's how close we are to filling up lot X in Atlanta...", etc. There will be scoreboards. One for individuals, and one for organizations. You will of course be able to filter by region as well. I'd like to gamify it a bit but that's something I'm having trouble figuring out. Of course if someone with a lot of money wants to get a bunch of trees planted, that's great! Pay-to-win is pretty cool in this scenario. I want their contribution to be appreciated and noticed! However, there are ways to fund this sort of work besides money coming directly out of peoples pocket, too. And the people making that happen need to be appreciated and noticed, too. Revenue from ads could go towards the work, which would mean there needs to be a reason to stay on the site a bit, and whatever other factors are relevant there. That could be quality content, games, a community of sorts. A LOT can and will go into it, but I plan on getting a MVP out the door within the next month. Stay tuned! There's so much to this I'll make a post on HN when it's time. ;)

  The important thing for me is to make this FOR profit and to give a QUALITY guide on how to basically "steal" this idea, assuming I am able to execute it effectively. Then, the competition can begin. As much as I hate capitalism, you can't deny it's ability to get people to work really hard. In my opinion, that's what needs to happen. To hell with the non-profit sector, for now.

  If you have ideas or would just like to discuss this a bit, feel free to do so by replying, or getting in touch. My personal email is j.horne2796@gmail.com

• by janfkowalski on 7/5/19, 11:33 AM

  how about contactong XR regarding your idea? Regards