How to Plant Trees Without Going Out
By Ananya Peddibhotla
Every year, on World Environment Day my social media is flooded with images of people holding muddy saplings ready to be planted. Frankly, it is a wholesome sight to see everyone wanting to do their bit for the environment. I too get inspired, however, I am faced with the additional dilemma of ‘How do I plant trees?’ Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t want to plant trees, the important attribution here is that I don’t have the space to plant trees. Even if this sounds like a lazy excuse, those of us living in gated apartments might be familiar with this dilemma. Instead of people coming together to plant trees, I have been witness to many trees being cut because it blocks the sunlight to already cramped apartment complexes. The more I think about this, the more it dawns to me that it is harder to find a space to plant trees rather than the process of planting itself. One could indeed be part of a plantation drive and plant trees, but again, especially in urban areas, open space to plant trees is a rarity. One must travel out of the city to plant saplings. Added to this is the additional difficulty of ‘who will water the plants?’, ‘who will protect the plants from predators?’, ‘who will protect the plants from being encroached?’ It might sound lame to say that such thoughts have always invaded our minds and has restrained us from taking the first step to plant trees, leaving the onus of responsibility to a few environmentalists or tree planting advocates. So, this brings me to the question this blog post would aim to address, how do we, as normal individuals, take the first step towards planting trees?
Let me start with asking you to imagine how impressive it would have been if we could plant trees while sitting on our laptops. Imagine a situation where you can plant trees just by doing your usual browsing on the internet. Doesn’t this feel like a blessing to all our tree planting desires? A few years ago, I came across an application which does exactly what I asked you to imagine- it plants trees for every web-search you make. Introducing Ecosia, a German-based search engine which facilitates the planting of trees. From my experience of using Ecosia and reading about it, here are five key-points that will familiarise you to the nitty-gritties of planting trees using this application:
How does it work?
According to Ecosia’s official website, similar to other search engines Ecosia earns money from clicks on the advertisements that appear above and beside the search results. As stated, ‘Ecosia uses 80% of its ad-revenue to plant trees, by partnering with tree plantation projects around the world.’ Moreover, Ecosia has its solar plants to supply enough clean energy to power the searches. This replaces electricity derived from fossil fuels. Further, each search with Ecosia removes 1 kg of Co2 from the air, which therefore makes it a carbon-negative search engine.
Where do they plant trees?
The company partners with organisations in countries to monitor their tree plantations and are currently spread over 15 countries. To make a sustainable impact, Ecosia plants trees in biodiversity hotspots of these countries. Keeping in mind the dilemma we all face when it comes to where to plant trees, Ecosia fulfils its goal of planting trees by concentrating its efforts in the most vulnerable hotspots wherein close to 70% of endemic plant species have deteriorated. Currently, trees have planted by Ecosia in fifteen countries; Brazil, Indonesia, Ghana, Peru, Madagascar, Haiti, Colombia, Morocco, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nicaragua, Senegal, Tanzania, Burkina Faso and Spain. Moreover, to help farmers who need trees, Ecosia allocates specific funds to finance farmers’ tree-planting needs.
How do I believe this?
Ecosia publishes something called ‘financial reports’ almost every month, documenting their monthly expenditure and gains. These documents according to them are to be as transparent as possible with the user, which in my opinion is a brilliant way to gain the user’s trust. Keeping in mind the numerous concerns with ‘not everything that looks good on the internet is good’, Ecosia’s financial reports prove to be an earnest attempt to leave no doubts or fears in the users’ mind.
Do I have to give up Google?
What if I tell you, you don’t have to trade-off google to use Ecosia? Google has the Ecosia extension available on chrome web store to prevent exactly what you must have feared. The extension does have the same impact, and would also update the user with the number of trees they have funded, through something called as the ‘tree count’.
What is the scope of Ecosia in India?
Ecosia launched its programme in India in 2019 by partnering with Sustainable Green Initiative (SGI) and Grow Trees. The planting method adopted for India is through tree nurseries and the promotion of sustainable agroforestry models in Northern India. According to Ecosia’s website, in Singhbhum, trees planted by user’s searches are connecting forest patches that not only restore elephant and tiger migration routes but also improve forest-based livelihood opportunities for local communities. The current (as of 2020) tree count for India is 3,14,329 trees, all planted by the searches of internet citizens! Moreover, this has helped restore 35.1 Hectares since 2019!
I believe what Ecosia does is, tap into the hidden environmentalist in all of us and guides us to take our first step towards nourishing our earth. I hope this motivates us in our tree plantation journey and makes us more aware of the wonder that planting trees does to our ecosystem. Moreover, this awareness amongst us has the potential to reform our urban concrete squatters by advocating for trees spaces in apartment complexes. Please do keep in mind that Ecosia in no manner prevents you from planting trees on your own and it is, in fact, everyone’s responsibility to plant trees. The purpose of this blog post is to motivate you to take the first step in planting trees, and gradually move to physical plantation drives at your comfort. I will end here and leave you to wonder or google (hopefully on Ecosia), the wonders of planting a sapling.
Still not convinced? Well, here’s the link- https://www.ecosia.org/?c=en. Have a look!
