{"id":22231,"date":"2022-01-21T11:16:42","date_gmt":"2022-01-21T11:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highatlasfoundation.org\/?p=22231"},"modified":"2022-01-21T11:16:42","modified_gmt":"2022-01-21T11:16:42","slug":"benefits-of-community-tree-planting-and-worldtree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/benefits-of-community-tree-planting-and-worldtree\/","title":{"rendered":"Benefits of Community Tree Planting and WorldTree"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abigail Hall<\/em>
\nHAF-UVA Intern<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

There are three categories of benefits that come from tree planting in communities:\u00a0 social, environmental, and economic. Socially, trees improve the aesthetic and environment in\u00a0 which we live\u2014 they reduce stress, help children retain more information if they are able to\u00a0 spend time in green spaces, and serve as a memorial for important cultural events or values.<\/p>\n

Environmentally, trees reduce urban heat through evaporative cooling; they improve air quality\u00a0 by giving off oxygen and filtering dust and pollutants such as ozone, carbon monoxide, and\u00a0 sulfur dioxide; they reduce the amount of stormwater runoff and they provide protection for\u00a0 certain species of wildlife. Lastly, tree planting can have economic benefits, reducing cooling\u00a0 costs in the summer by providing shade and acting as food sources for food-insecure communities.<\/p>\n

Now that we have examined some direct and tangible benefits of community tree\u00a0 planting, this article is going to examine an organization called \u201cWorldTree.\u201d WorldTree is a\u00a0 group of investors, farmers, scientists, and activists who have come together and committed to\u00a0 building a new kind of forestry based on one of the fastest-growing trees in the world: The\u00a0 Empress Splendor. This tree grows to its full maturity in ten years. One initiative that WorldTree\u00a0 has started is using this wood to create musical instruments.<\/p>\n

So how might community tree\u00a0 planting and musical instruments be related? Well, there is currently a new search for guitar\u00a0 wood because the current gold standard for instrumental wood is Swabash, which is now\u00a0 becoming limited due to climate change. Investing in planting The Empress Splendor is the solution.<\/p>\n

There are many incredible properties of the Empress wood. First, it is incredibly light\u2014a\u00a0 quality that many musicians prioritize when purchasing an instrument. Empress wood is also\u00a0 hydrophobic, meaning that once it is dried out it will resist getting wet again. Some logistical\u00a0 benefits of Empress wood include its easy ability to take and hold stains and finishes well in\u00a0 addition to the ease with which this wood can be worked on and molded. Once the Empress\u00a0 wood is harvested, the Empress trees can regrow. Additionally, upon harvest, the carbon is\u00a0 sequestered, absorbing thirty tons of carbon per acre per year.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

WorldTree has partnered with the Sustainable Furnishings Council, which has over 400 \u00a0members, to look at ways to advance and move towards sustainable, plantation-grown wood.\u00a0 With the Empress Splendor, they can do that. Today, the world still gets over fifty percent of its\u00a0 wood from native forests. One of the easiest steps to improve climate change is to protect native\u00a0 forests. With the Empress tree plantations allowing for over 5,000 acres of planted area,\u00a0 WorldTree can positively impact seven of the Sustainable Development Goals, which makes\u00a0 WorldTree the largest grower of Empress trees in North and Latin America.<\/p>\n

In addition to using Empress wood to create musical instruments, WorldTree has\u00a0 partnered with Katrien Van Der Schueren, an artist, designer, and interior designer in Los\u00a0 Angeles. Wood is a big proponent of interior design production and this partnership between WorldTree and Katrien\u2019s company, Voila Studies, will allow space and resources for more design and home products to be made out of the sustainable Empress wood.<\/p>\n

WorldTree brings together three critical aspects of impactful climate change efforts:\u00a0 innovation, expertise, and tree science. Their innovation includes the use of leading-edge forest\u00a0 inventory management. Their team includes forestry experts who have over seven million acres\u00a0 of timber investment experience. Lastly, WorldTree utilizes eighteen exclusive Empress\u00a0 genotypes that have been selected for lumber and carbon maximization.<\/p>\n

This organization\u00a0 should serve as an example of the vast number of benefits that result from community tree planting. Not only does this work provide jobs, but it also improves quality of life, amount of resources, and environmental health, and it serves as a space for experts in investing, farming, and science to\u00a0 work alongside passionate activists to create a better planet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abigail Hall HAF-UVA Intern There are three categories of benefits that come from tree planting in communities:\u00a0 social, environmental, and economic. Socially, trees improve the aesthetic and environment in\u00a0 which we live\u2014 they reduce stress, help children retain more information if they are able to\u00a0 spend time in green spaces, and serve as a memorial<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":22232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[54],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/tree21.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22231"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22233,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22231\/revisions\/22233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}