WHAT IS BIODIVERSITY?
RESTORING FORESTS
DAVID TIPLING—EDUCATION IMAGES/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP/GETTY IMAGESAadya Joshi looks out at a landscape near Mumbai,
India, and sees a line of eucalyptus trees. They were
planted to replace forest that was cleared for timber.
The view doesn’t make Joshi happy. Eucalyptus
trees don’t grow naturally in the area. Native trees
should have been planted, Joshi says. Only they could
bring back the biodiversity that once was there (see
“What Is Biodiversity?”). “You can’t plant something
that doesn’t fit into an ecosystem and expect the eco-
system to function,” she told TIME for Kids.
Joshi is the founder of The Right Green. The group
teaches people how to bring back forests by growing
native trees. Once, Earth was home to 6 trillion trees.
Only about 3 trillion remain. Planting new trees to
replace those that have been lost “sounds like a good
idea,” Joshi says. “But what [people are] doing in many
places is not restoring forests,” she says. “They’re just
replanting. There’s a big difference.”
REPLANTING PROBLEMS
Trees are important to the health of the planet. They help
clean the air and guard against climate change. They’re
also a source of food and medicine. But 46% of the
world’s trees have been cut down. This is done for things
such as cattle farming, or to produce palm oil or paper.
Some efforts to replant trees make environmental
problems worse. This has happened in Chile, in South
America. Big companies cut down forests for timber,
then replanted in the 1970s using the wrong kinds
of trees. This led to the growth of tree plantations.
“They’re not really what we imagine a forest to be,”
Robert Heilmayr says. “These trees are more like a crop.”
Heilmayr is a professor of environmental economics
at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He says
tree plantations may be worsening problems like soil
erosion. And they’re not as good as forests are at trap-
ping carbon dioxide, which worsens climate change.
Today, Chile’s government pays small landowners
to plant native trees. Heilmayr says this helps landowners
who are women or who belong to Indigenous communi-
ties. He thinks a more inclusive view of forest restoration
“is really productive.”RESTORATION DONE RIGHT
Restoring native forests must benefit local communities,
Bernadette Arakwiye says. She’s a researcher for the
World Resources Institute (WRI) Forest Program in
Rwanda, in Africa. “People are a part of the environment,”
she says. “We have to think both about the ecology of
the land and human needs.”
One WRI program plans to restore almost 400,
square miles of African land by 2030. Some farmers there
are planting trees that help the soil retain moisture. This
protects drinking water and allows other native plants to
grow. And it guarantees a source of food and income.
According to Joshi, protecting food sources and
protecting native species go hand-in-hand with fighting
climate change. Planting the right trees is part of the
solution. “Make sure you’re planting a variety of local
and native plants,” Joshi says. “We’ll only make
[environmental problems] worse by planting things
our ecosystems cannot survive on.” —By Karena PhanBiodiversity is the variety of living
things in a particular habitat or eco-
system. An environment needs
diversity to maintain balance. For
example, insects carry pollen that
plants need to make seeds. The
plants grow and provide food forinsects. Insects become food for
frogs. All living things work together.
You can help protect biodiver-
sity. Learn about the plants and
animals in your area. Join efforts
to plant native trees and clean up
rivers and parks.Hear the story read aloud in English and in Spanish at timeforkids.com.^5Planting trees is a way to bring back forests.
But it has to be done the right way.