By Pieter van der Gaag – Director, Ecosystem Restoration Foundation
I have often spoken about “Scaling Out” as the fastest, most effective and efficient manner in which change can take place around the planet.* Given the vast scale of ecosystem degradation, relying solely on expert institutions that “Scale Up” their work will never be enough to counter ecological degradation or building resilience to climate change within the time-period it is needed – the next decade – is not possible. There are not enough experts or institutions to cover the planet. Scaling Out uses the resource of billions of everyday people to achieve what is needed.
Yet, this does not mean that expert knowledge is not needed in this process. The key is to share it in a way that enables rapid dissemination and wider impact. This is a major challenge in a world where Intellectual Property Rights, NGO-competition, and “Business Models” stimulate knowledge scarcity.
In an effort to re-establish strong foundations for climate resilient and productive agricultural economies – especially in regions where desertification is taking place – a group of local experts from five regions in the EU met in Spain’s severely degrading Altiplano region near Murcia in late February, to exchange insights on effective reforestation methods, learn from each other, and discover ways to spread knowledge in the broader community of the regions where they work. These five groups are participating in a two-year EU-funded project to disseminate learnings about effective tree propagation methods.
Murcia, located in Spain’s dry Altiplano region – the location for this workshop – experiences extreme climate conditions of low and high temperatures, degraded soils and little rainfall which has led to severe degradation.
From each of the five EU regions, two representatives of local ecosystem restoration initiatives came together in a workshop with the Ecosystem Restoration Foundation and More Trees Now/Meer Bomen Nu, to discuss the joint programme, and to learn about and test new tree cultivation techniques in the Altiplano region.
The central question to be answered at this first session was: Can the method of the Dutch initiative “More Trees Now” be used in the specific soil and climate conditions of the Altiplano region (specifically the Quipar River Watershed)? The method, innovated by Dutch ecologist Franke van der Laan, harvests non-viable saplings from natural areas, further strengthens them in a tree-nursery setting, and then replants them after 2 years at a final location. This method works well in The Netherlands, where millions of trees have been transplanted in this way. It’s a very cost-effective method to increase tree-cover, sequester carbon and create natural spaces for biodiversity to thrive. By using trained volunteers to harvest non-viable trees with permission from landowners, distributing them for free to other landowners in need of trees and teaching how to plant them, the method rapidly increases the rate of planting of trees with high survival rate.
Silvia Quarta, Restoration Community Leader at Camp Altiplano, presenting the Quipar River watershed plan
The specific conditions of the Quipar River Watershed present some obstacles for implementation of this method. For a start, the climatic conditions are difficult: Extreme winds, extreme temperature shifts, a drought that has lasted three years, and very tough soils made this method less appealing to the local experts present at the workshop. Nevertheless, an experiment was started to prove whether the presupposed obstacles can be overcome or not.
Workshop participants preparing a ‘tree hub’, by digging two long trenches for the 10 species of native trees and shrubs to be planted into. These trees need to be taken care of with regular watering to encourage more root growth before they are then planted out in areas where they have space and the right conditions to grow to maturity. It remains to be seen whether this technique will be a success in the Altiplano region.
In the Quipar River Watershed, the practice is to purchase viable trees from nurseries and plant them alongside oak seeds, following a specific method that focuses on water capture (deep and wide holes) and retention, as well as the ecological principle of ecological support between different species (planting a fast-growing tree together with a slower growing tree). Protecting seedlings from the sun using local means (stones) is the second method. This technique, developed with success over the past eight years by the people at ERC Altiplano, might also be useful for other dryland regions.
Reforestation of the Quipar River Watershed is desperately needed. Currently the Quipar River emerges from natural springs at the La Junquera Farm, but stops flowing after 2 km, whereas it should flow for 80 km. This forces agriculture to harvest the remaining remnants of water found in depleting aquifers. Reforestation will benefit agriculture in the region, which is focussed on grains, almonds and pistachios, as well as some cattle-ranching. The aim of this project is to retain more water in the landscape after infrequent and insufficient rains. The hope is that – through the restored natural environment – rains will become more frequent and that water retention will allow the river to flow again. Currently the lack of vegetation creates conditions that keep rain from falling or not reaching the ground.
Workshop participants observing the process of harvesting baby stone oak saplings from underneath the mother tree. These saplings don’t have space to grow into mature trees, so they were harvested and put in a temporary tree hub to allow them to grow more roots, and then they will be planted out in their final location the following year, if they survive the harsh climate of the Altiplano.
Over the next year, the group will visit the other countries to learn from local practices and experiment further with the More Trees Now method. The aim is also to increase the number of people locally that are familiar with low-cost effective tree-planting methods. Each local initiative will organise local training events for that purpose. In line with the goals of the Ecosystem Restoration Communities movement the group strongly agrees that we need to significantly increase the number of farmers or local community members that can propagate tree-growth across Europe, and the planned visits are aimed at equipping the local leaders and experts that attended this first gathering with new tools and insights!
Learning from each other and growing the skill set to teach others regionally is core to the “Scaling Out” approach to rapid ecosystem restoration. We hope to be able to share more insights on how this approach works soon!
* Curious to learn more about Scaling Out? Catch Pieter van der Gaag’s TedX Talk at Wageningen University in The Netherlands, in November 2023.