The UK’s largest woodland conservation charity is enlisting technology’s help to plant thousands of trees
A pioneering drone seeding initiative in south-west England – one of the largest of its kind using native tree seeds to date – has the potential to transform rainforest restoration, say those involved.
The project, by the Woodland Trust, has seen high-tech drones scatter 75,000 seeds across the Bodmin landscape in Cornwall.
The drones, which weigh 110kg and can carry up to 58kg of seeds each, hover a few metres above the ground and can access areas where the planting of trees by hand isn’t feasible.
Joining forces with the South West Rainforest Alliance, the Woodland Trust aims to use the technique to triple the land area of temperate rainforest across Cornwall and Devon from 8% to 24% by 2050.
Three-quarters of Devon and Cornwall was once rainforest, but 90% of this has now been lost. “These are among the most threatened ecosystems on Earth,” explained Sam Manning, project officer for south west rainforests at the Woodland Trust. “They are biodiversity hotspots, home to more than 2,000 species of lichen. Sadly, rainforests cover just 1% of the Earth’s land surface, and we are one of only a small handful of rainforest nations left on Earth.”
Restoring and expanding our temperate rainforests could prove vital in tackling the climate and biodiversity crises, Manning said. A key part of that is developing ways to create and expand woodland that are faster, cheaper and that reach sites that are inaccessible or unsafe for human tree planters, or patches where soils are too thin to allow planting with spades.
There are various potential benefits to using drones in place of volunteers, exponents say, including their speed and cost, as well as the improved accessibility. “Many potential woodland creation sites are either too steep, unsafe or remote for people to plant or scatter seeds,” said Manning.
Scattering tree seeds that are native to these rainforests, including common oak, alder, wild cherry, downy birch and hazel, the drones seeded 11 hectares of land in eight hours.
But there are limitations to the technique, including weather making the intervention less possible or effective, and low seed survival rates. Research shows that a large proportion of seeds dropped by drones are unlikely to survive due to poor soil conditions, predation or due to the environments being unsuitable.
To explore such concerns, the project has developed control areas across the sites, to compare drone seeding and natural rainforest regeneration. With an aim to revisit all trial sites at various points over the next three years, the Woodland Trust will review the rate of seed germination and how the planted trees are developing.
“We hope to see a success rate of seed to tree of at least 25% for this trial, which in turn could inspire practitioners and funders to invest time and money into refining the effectiveness of drones for woodland creation,” said Manning.
There are other challenges associated with a project of such scale, with a limited supply chain of tree seeds to meet the vast areas involved, and only a handful of companies with legal permission to operate drones in this way, though this is swiftly evolving.
“We hope increasing demand for this kind of product will lead to an increasing supply chain and could revolutionise woodland creation,” said Manning.
There has never been a better time to remember that we are a rainforest people who live on a rainforest island
Up to 20% of the British Isles was once rainforest, but due to deforestation across the uplands, this has now been reduced to less than 1% of its original range.
Merlin Hanbury-Tenison, author of Our Oaken Bones, a book exploring rainforests, owns part of the land where the seeding has taken place. “If we’re to reverse this destruction, then we will need to leverage innovative technology-enabled solutions wherever possible. I cannot think of a better example of this than the drone seeding project that the Woodland Trust has embarked on in the Cabilla Valley,” he said.
“There has never been a better time to remember that we are a rainforest people who live on a rainforest island.”
The trial is funded by the Woodland Trust’s Rainforest Recovery Project through Defra’s Species Survival Fund.
Images: Here Now Films
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