BioCarbon Engineering has partnered with Worldview International Foundation in order to start planting huge amounts of trees to aid in reforestation in different areas. BiCarbon Engineering was founded in 2015 in Oxford, England, and they have experience testing drones in their home country as well as in Australia. The Worldview International Foundation has experience in reforestation efforts, having planted 2.7 million trees in only five years—they are very experienced with reforestation technology, and have the resources and money required to take on a challenge this big. Working together, BioCarbon Engineering can help the Worldview International Foundation work more quickly and efficiently by using drones that drop seeds into the soil from the air.
Reforestation begins with topographical mapping of the zones that are to be replanted. The Parrot drone company has invested in the creation of drones to help with this task; these drones can travel over large areas of land, analyzing plant distribution, soil quality and moisture content, and other elements of the area’s topology. BioCarbon Engineering takes this information and analyzes it to determine what combinations of tree species have the best change of surviving in the habitat that the drone analyzed.
The drones return to the area, this time with pressurized cans that can shoot seeds at high velocity into the soil. The seeds are released every six seconds, and the drones plant thousands of seeds in very short periods of time. The time the drones take to plant these seeds is a fraction of the time that people would need to accomplish the same amount of work. The drones use the data gathered during the first step of the reforestation process to avoid areas where seeds will likely fail to germinate, such as rocky soils or pools of water, and so only the best areas for planting are visited. Lauren Fletcher, the counfounder of BioCarbon Engineering, works hard to transform ecosystem and habitat destruction into an opportunity for reforestation; she used to work with NASA in the Life Sciences department program for the space station.
BioCarbon Engineering drones are also able to keep track of growth in the planted areas, and so they can provide data to reflect which seeds are growing healthily or if changes need to be mad. This constant supply of useful information can make it much easier for farmers to plant in less desirable areas, such as in areas where the soil is too dry, as it saves time and money by guiding farmers to making the best decision to improve plant survival. It also helps the Worldview International Foundation’s reforestation efforts, by saving the organization time and manpower while maximizing the number of trees that grow.
BioCarbon Engineering drones can plant up to 100,000 trees in one day. Working together with Worldview International, BioCarbon Engineering is leading the way in using drones to protect against deforestation. They are able to use their drones to replant mangroves in coastal regions that have suffered greatly as a result of industrialization, and can plant in areas that would be difficult to reach without drones.
