The Earth is greener than 20 years ago: who do we owe it to?

The US Space Agency has compared satellite images and established that the Earth became much greener, covered with new trees, writes “Agro-Center”.

Scholars established that we mostly owe it to China and India. Both countries are actively pursuing a policy of planting new trees and fight deforestation of their territories, attracting their considerable populations. In 2016, India set a world record – 800,000 citizens planted 500 million trees in one day.

A wonderful ecologist-enthusiast lives in Bulgaria. 35-year-old Nikola Rakhny set a goal to plant up to 1 million trees in his country by 2020. As of today, with the help of like-minded people, he managed to plant 616,000 trees. Nikola launched the project in 2013 and established partnerships with residents of 500 settlements with vast areas of forest lands and the leadership of 1,000 schools and kindergartens. Every year, Nikola organizes a large-scale tree planting in which 300-400 people take part.

“This spring we succeeded in planting 84,000 honey-bearing trees for beekeepers. We also planted 112,400 trees in 104 municipalities. In addition to purifying the air, plants serve as food and shelter for many animals, protect soil from erosion and perform important ecological functions. It’s enough to spend a day in the open sun to understand the benefits of planting trees. I assume that the number of trees in Bulgaria exceeds 10 million. 40% of the land in Bulgaria is covered with forests,”

says Nikola.

When asked to comment on NASA’s photos, Nikola said that they do not provide a realistic picture as the photos also show green crops as well as forests that are in poor condition.

The UN data confirm that things are not as good as it may seem on NASA’s photos.

More than 1 million species of animals and plants may become extinct in the next ten years. This includes 10% of insects, 40% of amphibians and 33% of all corals, marine mammals and sharks. During these 20 years, 20 billion acres of tropical Amazon forests have been destroyed and replaced with agricultural fields.

Scientists at the University of Zurich say that humankind needs to plant 1.2 trillion trees to offset the amount of carbon dioxide produced by modern civilization. At the moment, a little more than 3 trillion trees grow on our planet.

In 2006, the UN launched a global initiative “1 billion trees.” 193 countries joined the project, planting more than 15.2 billion trees over 12 years, including: China – 2.8 billion, India – 2.1 billion, Ethiopia – 1.7 billion, Pakistan – 1 billion, Mexico – 789 million, France – 723 million, Turkey – 716, Peru – 646 million, Nigeria – 626, Kenya – 542 million, Egypt – 500 million, USA – 315 million.