In my previous
article, I put forth before you ‘Scenario
2030’ – a target date for us to adhere to. We discussed how food shortages
would plague our land and decided to act immediately on this. In another one of my article ‘What
if you were paid money for every tree you plant?’ – I introduced a new
concept of paying royalties to individuals who would plant and nurture trees.
This was more on the lines of our obligation to save mother earth.
A lot of
interested earthizens came back to me after reading these articles. A few
explained their inability to find adequate land around their apartment
complexes to plant a tree. A few more praised the novel idea of encouraging
plantations through the payment of royalties. In this article, I will combine
both these concepts into one single idea – ‘Tree Credits’.
Climate change
has reached an inflection point today. It cannot be reversed, but can be
reduced. The primary reason for global warming (which is causing climate change) is greenhouse gas emissions
mainly from electricity generation, industries and automobile emissions. The
main carbon sink to reduce the percentage of carbon di oxide (the main greenhouse gas) are the
forests of the earth. Unfortunately this strategic tree cover is decreasing by
the day.
The basic idea
and the driving force behind ‘Tree Credits’ is to create more food, employment
and simultaneously increase the green cover of the earth. This idea was
conceptualized in 2009 by Ferdinand Swart, a Dutch designer and
environmentalist. His intention was to extend a smaller more practical version
of carbon credits to every Earthizen. Ferdinand even initiated a pilot project
in India in the year 2011 in association with PSA, an NGO based out of Trichi.
Tree Credits is
a unique idea that gives every Earthizen a chance to give back to nature – may
be through direct planting of trees or may be through funding the project. It
offers us all a great opportunity to reduce our carbon footprint and help
resuscitate our ailing mother earth. Before going into the specific details of
this idea, let me first brief present before you the advantages of this
concept.
- · Increase local food production – by practicing agroforestry.
- · Increase local source of fodder.
- · Improve soil fertility -decrease reliability on chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
- · Create employment opportunities – particularly amongst rural women.
- · Create an additional source of income in the form of royalties.
- · Create a good investment which can be used as a guarantee against micro-finance loans.
- · Increase density of green cover and thus avail the associated benefits.
The ultimate
goal of Tree Credits is to double the tree cover and exponentially increase
food production throughout the world (taking
2015 as the base year for estimation) by 2050.
My next article
would detail the implementation plan of the tree credit idea. But, before we go
ahead and do that – I would like to assess your support for the same. If you
would in the near future come forward to participate (through monetary support or volunteering) please do leave a
comment below.
The next big
idea to change the world is here!
