The progress of humanity has led to a multitude of technological marvels that has made our lives easier. Throughout the course of this crusade however, humanity has paved a path of destruction in the environment around them. Trees have been razed for our purposes with little regard to what happens after. This seemingly small part of an immensely large ecosystem still created ripple effects on the planet.
Although things seem bleak with all the climate changes and destruction that can be traced back to the deforested areas all over the planet, it is not irreversible. Through technology, we can rebuild what we once destroyed.
Over the past few decades the masses have gradually started become more aware of the damage to the environment and what it has created all over the world. Green initiatives started cropping up all over the developed nations, spreading the message of climate change and environmental awareness. Trees have been planted to counter all the destruction brought about by the pursuit to progress, with citizens all over the world planting one tree at a time – all by hand – but that may all change.
A British company by the name of BioCarbon Engineering might have found a solution to this ongoing global problem. With the use of drone technology, they propose that drones learn to map out an area with the end goal of creating an efficient planting pattern. This area mapping may sound incredibly complex, but a smaller version of it actually happens in millions of homes across the globe. The Roomba vacuum robot does the same mapping concept, albeit at a smaller area size being the owner’s rooms. The drone can then create a pattern for the surveyed area and determine the most efficient way to plant the trees.
This is but the first phase of the project, however. After the drone maps the area and creates the planting pattern, a second drone would be the one to do the dropping. The second drone, equipped with 300 (the maximum capacity) germinated seedpods, would follow the pattern and do the planting at a rate of 1 seedpod per second. This drone boasts a very impressive rate of 100,000 units per day, with 60 drones being estimated to be able to plant a billion trees annually.
This process is projected to be ten times faster than hand planting, while also being 20% cheaper in comparison. This drone planting project started development in 2015, and has already been tested in various locations, such as the abandoned coal mining area in Dungog Australia.
