No Trees Please On My Land

Trees serve the ecosystem by storing carbon, conserving soil, and regulating the water cycle. We have lost roughly half of the world’s estimated original 5.8 to 6 trillion trees since humans began agriculture 12,000 years ago and our planet now has only about 3 trillion left.

Every year, up to 16 billion trees are cut down to create space for human progress. Trees provide habitat for a variety of creatures, including us humans and they help to sustain natural and human food systems.

Unfortunately, trees are commonly seen as disposable, and they are over-harvested for monetary gain or as a barrier to human development.

Land clearing is the activity of removing trees, stumps, and other vegetation from wooded regions, which is frequently done for farming, subdivision, and new property developments.

Land clearing can have disastrous repercussions on species, adjacent habitats, and even the climate. The most common cause for land removal is for food production.

Land clearing, often known as deforestation, occurs frequently in order for people to raise cattle or other meat sources for consumption.

Humans seem to be addicted to Land Clearing.

Housing and commercial developments may require selective clearing or the entire removal of all trees, underlying layer of vegetation, stumps, and weeds to create a fully cleared and usable environment.

Land clearing has caused significant environmental stress, culminating in the extinction of native plants and soil degradation.

It can have a range of effects on land areas and what lies below; destruction of the soil structure, erosion, increased salinity, loss of water quality, harm to coastal marine zones, as well as exposing the remaining ecosystems to fire and eco pests such as weeds.

Historical land clearing and other agricultural operations disturbed or destroyed indigenous land management practises.

Unfortunately, we believed that significant land clearing would increase the nutritional content of the soil and make it fertile enough to support agricultural development.

Land clearing has a negative impact on the health of rivers and coastal habitats. It harms coral reefs and other marine ecosystems, such as seagrass beds by accelerating erosion and the transport of sediment, fertilisers and other contaminants into coastal seas.

Higher nutrient concentrations in rivers and streams can generate harmful algae blooms.

Healthy forests are essential for a healthy planet.

When rain falls on bush in arid locations, much of it is collected by plant roots and evaporated back into the atmosphere.

After the bushland or forest area is cleared, the water flows down through the earth and into the ground water.

The water table can then rise, bringing salt to the surface and causing salinity, rendering land unfit for cultivation and destroying species habitat.

Trees are well known for increasing soil fertility and planting trees is one of the simplest and most effective strategies to mitigate climate change caused by greenhouse gasses.

As trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), a major greenhouse gas in the environment.

Forests and bushland areas aid in the physical, biological, and chemical weathering of rocks, which occurs when plants break up rocks with their developing roots or plant acids help dissolve rock, as well as the formation of foliage and its final disintegration.

Soil organisms in forests breakdown organic debris and mix it with mineral soil, which improves soil structure, porosity, and nutrient availability.

Forest floors’ various plant materials provide home for animals and micro-organisms.

Large volumes of water are stored in forests and eventually released into the atmosphere, which is critical to the water cycle.

Forest soils support a diverse range of life forms that obtain their energy mostly from organic matter produced by photosynthesis and shed by plant structures and animals.

Plant roots, micro-organisms and soil animals are the most important biological components of forest soils.

Farmers can grow Fertilizer trees to improve their crops.

All over the world, Fertilizer trees such as ‘Sesbania’, ‘Gliricidia’, ‘Tephrosia’, and ‘Faidherbia albida’ are being integrated with crops and pasture lands to improve the condition of degraded soil, increase food production, as well as growth of legumes, grasses, clover and alfalfa growth for cattle grazing.

When Fertilizer trees are grown, crop production can double.    The increase in the soils organic content also increases the amount of water that soil can hold.  

These trees enrich the soil that is often depleted by growing crops year after year and they capture nitrogen from the air and put it in the soil through their roots.  

They can also bring nutrients from deep in the soil up to the surface for crops with roots that cannot reach that depth.  

Fertilizer trees are further useful for preventing erosion, soil degradation and related desertification, and improving water usage for crops.

Using more wood means planting more trees.

We now have a plethora of uses for timber and our consumption via building construction is increasing at a rate we could never have imagined, which is most likely why we never felt the need to plant more trees before.

To ensure the long-term viability of the world’s timber supplies, industry and agriculture must work together to encourage farm-based tree growing.

The massive amount of wildfires that have ravaged the earth over the last decade have had a significant impact on timber resources in both plantations and forests.

Before these fires, we knew the globe required billions of acres of new soft and hardwoods; the total requirement right now would be astounding.

Farmers around the world have a great chance to make some extra money, generate timber, enhance soil quality and farming productivity, increase the world’s timber security and provide extra wildlife habitats by planting trees and forests on farmland.

Because wood is the only substantial building material grown in the ground, we frequently believe that building with wood is good for the environment.   

However, the benefits of utilising timber are not obvious; although it is a natural product, a vast amount of energy is required to dry and process it.

Steel Frame homes should be prioritised in new home construction.

I used to believe that steel frame homes were primarily advantageous because they were free of termites, but with the current global tree issues, they may be a very good option for the environment as well.   

A timber frame home consumes approximately 22 pine trees, but steel frames require no deforestation at all.  In addition, if your home is made of recycled steel, we will create less landfill.

When you consider that steel frame homes are fire resistant, termite proof, stronger and straighter and very cost effective, there is a strong case to be made for this kind of housing construction.

We must reverse current trends in land clearing and tree removal.

Since the world was first forewarned that resources were being used up at an unsustainable rate, more than 50 years had passed.

Approximately 25 to 30 percent of the world’s land is thought to be in some state of degradation. Land that has undergone physical or nutritional degradation produces or sustains less life.

This is primarily caused by soil loss, changes in the quality of the soil, or lack of land cover, including tree removal. Degraded areas make up one-fifth of agricultural land and more than one-third of forest land.

There will be approximately 10.19 billion people on the world by 2048, and we will struggle to feed everyone owing to soil degradation.

When soil is degraded and trees are cut down, the carbon contained within is released into the atmosphere and as we know, climate change is caused by the high carbon concentration of the atmosphere.

Because so much land has been transformed via agriculture, purposeful tree planting on farms is a critical technique for repairing our degraded lands. These trees are economically and ecologically significant outside of forests.

Regrettably, many countries around the world still remain in the dark about all this and very few agricultural universities and training organisations are teaching people about it all.

This must alter if farming diversity is to be implemented globally to solve our global issues of food production, environmental protection, building, and climate change mitigation. Because trees store carbon, they are essential to a healthy and balanced ecology.

Trees store three-quarters of the carbon present on agricultural land, influencing climate change and protecting soil.

Rich, nutritious soil promotes plant development, stores carbon, and is essential for practically all agricultural production.

The international community has recognised this and is fighting to rehabilitate degraded forests. Countries have vowed to repair approximately 200 million hectares of land globally.

Trees can be beneficial and profitable components of agricultural systems. They supply wood, food, and fuel. They improve soil fertility and safeguard the ecological services on which agriculture depends.

Increasing farm tree cover is more than a goal; it is already happening around the world, particularly on smaller farms.

The good news is that almost 40% of farms worldwide have more than 10% tree cover, and with some luck and global cooperation, these figures will continue to rise year after year.

The worldwide lumber shortage is a huge problem for everyone.

The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in an unanticipated housing boom as homeowners worldwide attempted to adapt their premises to rapid changes in lifestyles, such as working from home.

The construction industry saw unprecedented demand, and government stimulus packages were provided in various countries, putting extra money in people’s pockets and encouraging them to complete projects they had been putting off for years.

The massive rise in home purchases and renovations caused a rapid surge in timber costs, as well as a global shortage.

As if that wasn’t enough, the world has seen a large number of bushfires and floods, all of which necessitate post-disaster construction and repairs, putting further demand on building materials.  

In addition, a bark-eating mountain pine beetle and multiple seasons of destructive bushfires have wiped out Canada’s softwood supply, which generally supplies approximately a third of American lumber.

Despite the fact that impacted countries have initiated investigations in an effort to discover solutions to these challenges and ensure that construction projects can continue, I honestly do not believe there is a short-term solution; this will take several years to recover from.

Even if we all switched to steel frame housing construction overnight, it’s questionable whether the steel industry could handle the unexpected rise in demand.

So, now, here we all are, there isn’t enough lumber available for purchase to support global housing growth, what are we going to do?

Although Covid caused a lumber scarcity due to demand, it also contributed to the shortfall due to operational constraints observed at sawmills for around two years.

While Europe had a surplus of felled logs ready for sawing into lumber at the start of the pandemic, many of those logs were never moved, and outputs from European mills was delayed for at least the last two years due to covid-related working constraints, exacerbated the problem of timber scarcity.

Sawmill operations were restricted for similar reasons all over the world, and there was an extraordinary shortage of shipping containers during the same period, affecting lumber imports into areas desperate for whatever lumber was available.

Unfortunately, construction projects sometimes take a long time to complete, making them especially vulnerable to variations in supply and demand. By default, the majority of construction companies work on fixed-price contracts, which subject the contractor to variable expenses and affects their overall profit or loss.

Given the ongoing volatility of timber prices, many businesses are naturally evaluating their corporate structures and operations in order to reduce shrinking profit margins.

It’s eye-opening to observe how different countries rely on various supplies of timber from around the world, and how the shortage has impacted the construction industry as well as residential repairs and renovations.

Worldwide, there must be millions more homeowners who are still having problems as a result of the building materials supply shortfall; I’ve heard that in some cases, the timber shortage has delayed the time it takes to build a new house by over a year.

Although we all know that wood is a renewable resource, this does not mean that its use in construction will last forever.

There’s a significant chance we’ll run out of forests if they’re deforested faster than we can plant trees and one unavoidable fact is that our planet’s population now sits at around 7.7 billion people and is expanding at a rate of 1.1 percent per year.

According to what I’ve read, the population will reach 10.19 billion by 2048. It is entirely possible that we may never be able to plant enough trees to counteract the increasing need for wood.

Any tree planting efforts we might engage are going to be hindered by our population growth, the more we multiply, the more land clearing that must occur in order to give space for all of these people to live in houses.   Our constant population growth is going to work against us in a number of areas.

No matter how versatile lumber is, if forest resources are depleted without enough planning for a sustainable supply of wood, the world’s demand will definitely become uncontrollable when the population approaches 10 billion.

Countries that supply timber to countries that only consume timber may eventually run out of wood or run a worrying deficit.    Every country will need to be a contributor, not just a consumer.

Most countries are probably doing everything they can to plant more trees and prepare for the future, but I believe any efforts in this direction will be overwhelmed by the roughly 10 million hectares of land clearing we carry out globally each year. 

Let us not forget how much lumber has been lost to bushfires in recent years around the world.

We’ll need a miraculous cure to put an end to bushfires in order to have a chance. In 2019-20, bushfires burnt over five million hectares of land in national parks in the Australian state of NSW alone.

It’s difficult to comprehend how stupid we all are when it comes to trees; we evidently believe it’s fine to keep harvesting trees for building or as an impediment to human progress without ever doing anything to diminish the demand.

We all want something to happen as long as it doesn’t affect us personally.   I believe our timber supplies will continue to be jeopardised as a result of poor supply chain management, which begins with forest management.

We will no doubt continue to fuel the need for excessive commercial harvesting and land clearing and we will sit back and accept that very poor forest management practises will continue.

We must stop promoting poor behaviour by asking firms that sell wood or wood products to avoid sourcing wood from non-sustainable forests.

It would be excellent if we could force irresponsible forest managers to halt or adjust their business operations in order to fulfil global demands. We urgently need a completely sustainable timber industry with zero net deforestation.

We will almost certainly need to build a lot more steel and composite frame homes to help reduce demand.

We must also abandon the notion that everyone requires a large home on a large plot of land.

We should be building upwards rather than outwards; we need to think differently about what a home should look like and this should help lessen the requirement for land clearing.

There is no need to wait for the world to solve these problems; simply get off the couch, walk outside, and plant some trees today and begin a conversation about what you believe the solution is.