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Why entrepreneurs should plant trees

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One million years ago, 90% of the Earth’s landmass was covered by trees. Perhaps an evolutionary coincidence; for sure a process initiated because it worked well for nature. At that time, humans were not around yet. It was other animals that were crawling the Earth, eating each other (the concept of ‘veganism’ didn’t exist yet) and morphing into something more and more human.

Forests were organically created millions of years ago as a natural benefit for the earth. It sounds silly to reduce that evolution, but that’s exactly what happened

Fast forward 1 million years and only 10% of our land is covered by trees.

Humans have evolved so far into consumerism that we have forgotten about the organic balance originally created by Mother Nature. Just like our ancestors a million years ago, we still eat other animals, but we also consume whatever the Earth has to offer in oil, gas and oxygen.

Luckily, we learned a few things over the years

We didn’t know any better; since the late 19th century, the global population has grown from 1 to 7 billion. We needed agricultural land to grow animals, and wood for warmth and construction, so we started chopping down trees. By doing this, we reduced the number of natural habitats (which were actually storing and removing our CO2). We also started digging up fossil fuels and burning them to run cars, power plants and factories, releasing their stored CO2.

We dramatically reduced forestation on our planet. We turned forests into agricultural land and pastures, releasing even more CO2 through cattle and use of fertiliser.

When you take something you have to give something back in return.

We are not the first to discuss this. Despite the discussion about the benefits of planting trees, the overall research shows that reversing a man-made mistake will do us good and planting new trees can remove 30% of our CO2 emissions from the atmosphere. This can be a Western initiative, but also an Eastern or even global Southern initiative, where Tabi Joda decided to revive his childhood forest by planting trees.

Wherever people live, they need somewhere sheltered to live and have a meal, so we cannot stop producing and therefore cause CO2 emissions.

As true as that is, we need to manage the consequences of our population growth. The Earth has 29.2% landmass, the equivalent of 14 billion hectares, but in just two centuries we have degraded more than 15% of this landmass, the equivalent of 2 billion hectares.

This problem needs a positive and sustainable solution

We are not used to paying back something we did not take ourselves but by now we have learned that it’s time for a cultural mindset change.

We have the opportunity to live on this Earth as it was created organically, millions of years ago, before us humans destroyed it with our consumerism.

By planting more trees, we take direct action.

As Eastern Ridge, we see a solution by making businesses take responsibility and action. See our Travel Agency story for an example.