text: UK-based drone manufacturing company BioCarbon Engineering has come up with a method of planting trees quickly and cheaply.
  According to an estimate, we are taking 15 billion trees from our forests every year. This is a huge number. Despite this, the rate at which we are planting trees is about 9 million, which is a little more than half of what we are taking.
  But so far we couldn’t do much about it, because until now, the only method that we knew for planting trees was through hand planting. But that’s history now. To change this BioCarbon Engineering, a UK-based company backed by drone manufacturer Parrot, has come up with the idea of planting trees using drones. An intelligent method, this one takes lesser time and is quite economic also.
  The process involves a UAV for scanning the land’s topography for creating a 3D map for it. Then the most efficient planting pattern for that area is calculated using algorithms. The process further involves a drone loaded with germinated seeds that fires pods into the ground at a very controlled speed, which is roughly about 100,000 seeds a day. If we could scale up this from one drone to hundred drones, and reciprocate the idea in every country, within a few years time we can replenish the world with new forests.
  Recently, Norway announced a $400 million fund to kick-start investments in deforestation-free agriculture in countries that are working to reduce their forest and peat degradation. Now, if we can adopt such methods, there is no doubt that we cannot change the phenomena of climate change.
  The minds behind BioCarbon Engineering have estimated that the system is about 10 times faster and costs only about 20% of the traditional methods. And because there is no heavy machinery involved, it is possible to plant trees in the remotest areas where there are no roads. The BioCarbon team has tested its technology in various locations and recently trialed reseeding historic mining sites in Dungog, Australia.