Will 'Plant A Billion Trees' Work?

#361: A Local Cautionary Tale

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The fight against Climate Change involves cutting emissions of greenhouse gasses, first and foremost.  Eventually, we'll also want to remove carbon from the air, since much of what we emitted in the past century will otherwise be in our atmosphere for a long time, causing Climate Chaos.  In some regions this will involve artificially removing carbon.  In most of the world, however, planting grasses at sea, and trees on land is the obvious, natural solution.  

Unfortunately, there are problems with our efforts at planting trees.  As this Vox article by Benji Jones points out, trees need water, the right soil, and usually, cooperation from the locals.  Otherwise, if planted in the middle of a hot summer, in inhospitable soil, or in a field used for grazing, most seedlings will perish. 

A local example:  A decade or so ago a particularly curvy section of a local highway was straightened by the state highway department, and in its former curvy areas trees were planted.  I imagine the on-paper master plan for this project had generic blobs of trees on each side of the roadway.  Someone then asked a tree person what kinds of trees should be planted.  The answer was probably smaller ornamental offerings so as not to eventually pose the threat of a taller tree falling on the road.

When one drives through this area these days, the planted trees have suffered from deer damage, something the state's experts, living in an urban area, perhaps didn't consider.  In this more rural location, trees need the following:

* water, in particularly dry months, during the year after planting

* minimal fencing to keep deer from eating and rubbing

* mowing, to keep competing vegetation from overcoming planted trees

Ironically, 'volunteer' trees will take over if allowed.  For Climate, this is probably the likeliest solution.  Unfortunately, this could easily result in massive hackberry, oak and maple within yards of the roadway, a no-no for a highway department that must constantly fight fallen limbs and trunks (Fun Fact: nearly a century ago a wealthy local planted sycamores along this roadway, county line to county line.  Unfortunately, though beautiful, they were all removed, in their prime, to widen the road).

So, the obvious solutions are a fall planting to avoid a spring planting plus drought, in addition to minimal fencing (I re-purpose livestock fencing for my trees).  Alternatively, as I do, mowers can be on the lookout for 'volunteers' growing in the right location.  These are often the result of squirrel know-it-all foresight, and can be flagged and mowed around.  This takes a good eye and a grounding in tree-identification.  But this still leaves deer as spoilers, so best to settle for fencing.