Category: Education

‘Ex-Reducer Hugh Birdsall reaches out to youth with Reforest the Tropics environmental group’

‘When New London pub rockers The Reducers toured Japan in 2004 and guitarist/vocalist Hugh Birdsall looked out from a Tokyo stage at a venue stuffed with screaming young fans, he probably figured it was as close as he’d ever get to living a Beatles/”Hard Day’s Night” mob-adulation moment.

That’s probably still true.

But the satisfaction Birdsall feels today, as an educational consultant for the environmental group Reforest the Tropics, speaking to classrooms full of young students about climate change, is an even more important and resonant experience.

Birdsall says, “The planet is in trouble. We are in trouble. But it’s one thing to alert someone to an external crisis and quite another thing to look inward and find out what our relationship to the planet is. That’s what I try to convey to students and, ultimately, it’s up to them to answer that question. But I can ask, ‘Does the planet belong to us or do we belong to the planet?'”

Reforest the Tropics is a Mystic-based nonprofit organization that works with farmers in Costa Rica to plant trees on their land to help offset carbon dioxide emissions. The group is sanctioned by the United Nations and works to mitigate climate change by sustainable forestry and long term carbon sequestration. Part of their efforts involve conducting programs and workshops with more than two dozen schools across Connecticut including both the New London and Norwich magnet schools. These efforts have resulted in several school- and student-sponsored tree-growing projects in the region.’

Read the full article here.

Measurements of a Klinkii tree are being taken for the carbon verification process.

For decades, Reforest The Tropics has been measuring the productivity of its forest plantations. In June 2017, for the first time, RTT contracted with an accredited third party, EARTH University, to verify its carbon claims under the protocols established by the International Organization of Standards. The results are fantastic news for RTT and anyone with an interest in global sustainability. Verified forests are averaging 23.66 metric tons (MT) of CO2e capture per hectare, per year! To help put this into perspective, most literature on tropical reforestation demonstrates carbon capture of 10-15 MT of CO2e capture under favorable conditions. In other words, RTT is essentially doubling the carbon capacity of current, successful reforestation projects.

One of RTT’s longstanding research goals was to design a mixed-species forest that can capture and store an average of at least 20 MT of CO2e per hectare, per year. Internally, we recognized this target was ambitious, however we have maintained the belief that lofty goals are fundamental to fulfillment of our mission of ‘making a tangible contribution to global sustainability.’ Not only have we met this objective, but we are exceeding it.

The amazing carbon capture of RTT forests is only part of the story however. Two additional pieces distinguish the RTT approach:

1. RTT’s mixed-species forests are more beneficial to the
   biome than ubiquitous single species monocultures, and
2. RTT forests are designed to generate perpetual income,
   which allows partnering landowners to participate in the
   project over the long-term.

Essentially, RTT is planting some of the worlds most productive forests…is doing so in more environmentally beneficial manner than typical reforestation models…and is working to ensure they will remain standing indefinitely. Impressive Carbon Capture Verified RTT has focused on forestry research for many years.

Dozens of different planting matrices and mixtures of species have been investigated in order to discover the optimal design to achieve RTT’s three research goals:

1. Sequester 500 MT CO2e over the initial 25-year
   contract period,
2. Generate $500 income for the landowner per hectare
   per year, and
3. Create a ‘permanent’ (read 100+ year) farm forest.
   

   Carbon verification team from EARTH University joins RTT staff and farm personnel to conduct their field work.

The verification process certified carbon from 8 different designs. The most productive forest was able to capture a phenomenal 34.21 MT CO2e per hectare per year for the Mohegan Sun Casino. Conversely, the least productive design achieved a respectable 11.9 MT CO2e per hectare per year. This design is noteworthy, however because one of the species in this mixture succumbed to a disease and had to be removed. Despite the elimination of hundreds of trees, the 5-year old forest is still productive and will only improve in terms of carbon capture as it matures. This example highlights the importance of RTT’s mixed species orthodoxy and offers a fair warning to advocates of a monoculture approach. Furthermore, if we remove this outlier from our analysis, verification results show that RTT forests are actually storing 25.38 MT CO2e per hectare per year.

The Big Picture: If RTT can plant a forest that doubles or triples CO2 capture of the most common reforestation models per hectare, we only need half the land (or less) to extract a corresponding amount of CO2. We at RTT have long known this is possible and now we have official verification of the RTT model’s potential. We thank you for your support as we spread the word.

Greg Powell
Executive Director,
Reforest The Tropics

This is the 2.5 acre, 5 ½-year old forest established by Reforest The Tropics for the CO2-emissions account of the Westerly, RI Middle School.  In a 25-year contract between RTT and the farmer, this forest is legally dedicated to sequestering and storing CO2 for this school’s account.  So far, it has captured 42 metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent at 5 years of age when last measured.  That’s 92,500 lbs of CO2, the equivalent of 4,625 gallons of diesel used in their school buses offset in this forest.

RTT recently launched an exciting new module to its educational program. In photos taken in both Costa Rica and Rhode Island, Greg Powell, the RTT Director, is giving a presentation about RTT forests to students at the Westerly Middle School. Greg, and RTT Forestry Engineer, Victor Martinez were able to make the presentation from Costa Rica using video-conferencing equipment funded by The Rotary Club of Westerly. Students were able to ask RTT staff questions about their forest in real time and learn about the importance of reforestation as well as specific elements of RTT’s reforestation approach. This level of connectivity between a school and their efforts towards sustainability is truly unique. RTT believes this type of engagement will foster a deeper understanding of the issues surrounding global sustainability for students throughout the region, moving forward.

Reforest The Tropics is proud this month to offer an essay by our friend and fellow tree advocate, Richard Higgins. Mr. Higgins is a writer, editor, and public speaker on Thoreau’s lifelong passion for trees. His book, Thoreau and the Language of Trees is due out next year. He is the editor of five books and the co-author of Portfolio Life. – Greg Powell, RTT Director

The discovery of the biochemistry and dynamics of the carbon cycle has made the work of Reforest the Tropics possible. Scientists know how much CO2 new trees absorb from the atmosphere, down to the quantities that different types of trees store in their roots, stems and leaves. While that science is impressive, it is helpful to remember that, long before the facts were in, wise people throughout history intuited the necessity, beneficence and saving qualities of trees.

One was Henry David Thoreau. The decimation of the New England landscape, which peaked about 1850, during his lifetime, angered him. Even the woods around his beloved Walden Pond were ravaged for fire wood during the unusually cold 1850s. “Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds!” he fumed. Thoreau hated losing woods that he knew, but his anger was the greater because he knew that without trees, nature would wither, and human life would as well. What we now know about trees makes Thoreau look clairvoyant. They were “rivers of sap and woody fiber” flowing “from the atmosphere and emptying into the earth,” he wrote. A century before nurse logs became a concept in forestry, Thoreau called pine trees “nurses” to the oak saplings that take root beneath them. He described trees as “fountains of water” and knew that their decomposition enriched the soil. He knew also knew, from the German botanist Kurt Sprengel, about the transpiration of leaves. “A thin column of smoke curls up from some invisible farmhouse,” Thoreau wrote “as silently and naturally as the vapor exhales from the leaves.” Before the term ecology was coined, Thoreau saw forests as whole landscapes that transcend any public or private boundaries. He urged that they be preserved as such. And despite the deforestation he witnessed, Thoreau had the foresight and faith in nature, to write that “one day they will be planted and nature reinstated to some extent.”

Photo: Richard HIggins

Thoreau also knew that trees were essential to the human spirit. “From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind,” he wrote in “Walking.” A town is saved, he said, “not more by the righteous men in it, than by the woods and swamps that surround it.” Every tree “sends its fibers forth in search of the Wild,” and in such wildness “is the preservation of the world.” Thoreau was not only the wise person to see these things. “Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow them,” the French diplomat Chateaubriand wrote in 1820. “What we are doing to the forests of the world,” wrote Mahatma Gandhi, “is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.” And a biblical author didn’t need to know about stomatal pores and chloroplasts to write, in Revelations 22.2, “The leaves of the trees are for the healing of nations.” Looked at this way, scientists should see it as an honor to provide the empirical evidence that these people were right. It’s even a greater honor to turn their words into action, which is just what Reforest the Tropics is doing.

-Richard Higgins

Richard may be contacted at: rihiggins@comcast.net

Reforest The Tropics’ forests are the most powerful carbon absorbing forest models ever developed. This came as a result of over 50 years of tropical forest research experience and refined under the development of a United Nations carbon sequestration program, the only one of its kind known to us in the Americas.

One of the biggest advantages to our program is that it is NOT a typical forestry offset project. Unlike other offset programs, RTT generates NEW CARBON CAPTURES with newly planted forests, not preservation of existing forests and not the sale of carbon that has already been captured. Only with newly planted tropical forests do we have a chance of absorbing pre -existing atmospheric CO2 that will continue to heat up the Earth even if today we stopped emitting all CO2 from all current sources.

These forests not only absorb 10 times more carbon dioxide than the temperate zone forests, but actually 4 times more than the average rainforest itself…even after thinning the forest to provide income for the farmer.

The enhanced productivity of these forest plantations has resulted in a financial model that makes this land use competitive with other land uses. Our models are demonstrating that a farmer can make as much money, or more, planting trees as he can raising cattle on the same land. This can ensure the sustainability of tropical forests. Increasingly, scientists are pointing to replanting our tropical lands as the most important aspect of our survival as a human population.

One the most important developments at Reforest The Tropics recently was a collaboration with the City of Gloucester, MA, to offset the carbon emissions of the entire school system using trees planted in Costa Rican forests. That’s six schools with 3000 students representing 44.2% of the municipality’s CO2 emissions.

The program really gained traction when RTT offered to provide guidance to implement a revolutionary educational initiative to use the school’s forest as a teaching platform for a climate change curriculum in grades K thru 12.

The classroom will be interactively connected to RTT foresters and the supporting community eco-culture in Costa Rica. So in three years, there will be enough trees planted to offset the entire school system’s carbon emissions. An advisory panel to the City came to the conclusion that using the RTT forest model was the most cost effective way to supplement it’s long term carbon neutrality goals. RTT has installed at least 14 pilot programs in southern Connecticut schools in the past 15 years, but the City of Gloucester is the first school system in the United States to bring this dual planting/teaching initiative to scale in a community’s goal to become carbon neutral.

The ultimate objective of the program is to instill emissions ownership responsibility in the children by having the schools teach by example. Psychologists tell us that our children almost certainly will follow our example, rather than us telling them what to do and how to behave.

So we can’t expect our children to be carbon balanced in their lives if we don’t set the example ourselves. That’s why the schools setting a goal to be 100% carbon balanced is so critical to the way our children will look at their own responsibility to address the huge sustainability decisions that will face them when they join the workplace as adults.

This combined rainforest offset/teaching program has the power to be the most influential movement on this planet to create a sea-change in the way our youth will feel and act to benefit global sustainability.

Harry Hintlian,
RTT Board Chair

Climate change will be the defining issue faced by the next generation of leaders. Having failed to adequately address centuries of accelerating CO2 emissions, we now share the collective responsibility to equip the next generation with the tools they will need to confront this massive challenge.

For many years, Reforest The Tropics has been delivering environmental education programs to students of all ages both in the United States and Costa Rica. Programs and lectures have included primary schools, middle schools, high schools, universities, and technical schools. In Costa Rica, RTT’s mixed species forests serve as living classrooms in which students, teachers and professionals of forestry and other earth sciences have learned about RTTs’ unique reforestation model. Due to the generosity of our partnering farmers, thousands of visitors from a number of different countries have benefited from these programs.

In the United States, education programs are typically based in the classroom, focusing on issues surrounding climate change and the science of forestry. Lessons are enriched with many photos and videos of RTT forests. RTT is now developing an even more interactive program in which students will have the opportunity to virtually tour their own forests via a web-link. Students will be able to ask questions directly to RTT foresters in Costa Rica in real time!

To date, RTT has planted carbon balancing forests for thirteen schools. These forests serve as a source of pride to schools, offer a unique learning opportunity, and foster a sense of responsibility and ownership of carbon emissions among the student body.

Moving forward, RTT intends to plant enough new forests to fully balance the emissions of participating schools and even entire school districts. RTT will work with administrators to calculate the emissions for the schools. Schools will then sign a vision statement which voices their commitment to eventually achieve 100% carbon neutrality. We will begin planting forests that will capture enough carbon dioxide each year to completely offset their emissions.

Photo Above: FUNDED BY A WAL-MART EDUCATIONAL GRANT, MS. DESIREE DERIX, A SCIENCE TEACHER FROM WESTERLY MIDDLE SCHOOL MEASURES A TREE IN A CARBON-OFFSET FOREST IN COSTA RICA.

Ms. Derix is the Head of the Science Department in the Westerly, RI Middle School. In order to expand the school’s capacity to teach about climate change, Reforest The Tropics and a major donor, The Superior Nut Co., have teamed together with the local Wal-Mart store and the Westerly Rotary Club to develop a school program that involves teacher training in the field. Ms. Derix spent a week in Costa Rica, training in forests, meeting farmers and understanding the importance and opportunity offered by reforesting farm pastures in the tropics. This environmental education program lasts for an initial 3 years and includes not only teacher training, but also sessions of student teaching by RTT staff, an annual CO2-emissions inventory of their school done by students, and the establishment of a 2 ½- acre carbon-offset forest for the school. Also in this photo, left, is Lauren Hintlian, RTT co-director and director of sustainability for The Superior Nut Co. In the blue hat is an independent forest consultant from Interforest who periodically reviews the RTT program and its measurements. Photo: March 21, 2013 in the Las Delicias Farm in Costa Rica. This is a UNFCCC-AIJ sanctioned program approved by the US and Costa Rican governments in 1995.

RTT believes that through active participation in a realworld solution, students will be left with a sense of empowerment and hopefulness in order to effectively confront this issue throughout their lives. Indeed, the world is counting on them to do so.

Hotchkiss School forest site

THE HOTCHKISS SCHOOL CARBON-OFFSET FOREST, THE PASTURE WE PLANTED IN JULY, 2007.  In this RTT UNFCCC program, pastures are reforested to capture CO2 for its US sponsors and to earn income for participating farmers.  Each project is a research forest to develop economically sustainable farm forests that meet the needs of emitters and farmers.  This 2½-acre site above was planted in July, 2007 for the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, CT. The site is shown below after reforestation when the forest was 6.49 years old with 106 MT of CO2e already captured. The chart also shows the participation of the different trees species used in the mixture. Because Hotchkiss was the sponsor of this forest, it has the rights to the CO2 captured in the forest for 25 years to balance its school emissions in the U. S.  We estimate that the forest will capture 20 metric tonnes of CO2 annually on the average during the 25-year agreement RTT signs with the farmer on behalf of the US sponsor.   Another goal in this applied research program is to develop economically sustainable forests that are partially harvested or thinned every 5 years for farmer income and that can store CO2 for over 100 years.  Reforest the Tropics (RTT) is a U. S. non-profit organization that manages this UN environmental education and research & demonstration program.  Photo below, Sept. 17, 2012.

Hotchkiss School Forest

In this photo, the forest is 6 years and 2 months old and is presently capturing CO2 at the annual rate of above 28 metric tonnes/year for the account of Hotchkiss.

HOW MUCH CO2 HAS THIS 12-YEAR OLD FOREST CAPTURED?

Fausto in Hotchkiss School forest

 Measuring trees in RTT School projects provides data on how much CO2 the forest has accumulated for the school’s CO2 emission account.  Here, Fausto measures a Pilon tree. Below, Dr. Barres lectures to an AP Science class last April in Hotchkiss.  There are 4 elements in RTT School projects: an annual CO2 emissions inventory done with students, teaching sessions, teacher training in the forests in Costa Rica and a 2 1/2 –acre school forest to capture CO2 for the school account and to produce logs for the farmer to sell. For more information, contact Dr. Herster Barres, cell 860-912-7706 in Mystic, CT.

Dr. Barres at Hotchkiss School

Elsie Stapf, a teacher in the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, CT

Climate Change and the Role of Tropical Forests

• Free classes on climate change and the role of tropical forests.
• A school forest on a farm in Costa Rica with animals, birds and trees.
• A sign with your name on it.
• Capture and store 20 tons of CO2 each year for your greenhouse gas account.
• A 25-year agreement with the farmer.
• The farmer benefits from selling some of the production from the managed forest.
• Your forest is managed by the staff of RTT. A free CO2-emissions inventory done by your students under RTT guidance establishes a baseline for your school or classroom.  Can you become greener?
• E-mail reports and photos for your class.
  
• Watch the forest habitat grow.
• Monkeys, Toucans, Armadillos, Parrots and more!
• Participate in our research to develop a better forest.

Forest Habitat and Support Projects Photo Gallery

Walking in the forest allows students to see more than just the trees.

The SEMI program at New London Public Schools forest is changing as the trees grow

SPONSOR A CARBON-OFFSET FOREST FOR YOUR SCHOOL
A pasture to a forest in less than 6 ½ years A research forest in Costa Rica