In 1947, Norwegian explorer Thor
Heyerdahl sailed 8,000 kilometres
from Peru to French Polynesia on a
balsa wood raft. He, his raft – the
Kon-Tiki – and his book of the same
name inspired a generation to consider
long-distance travel and voyages of
discovery. But although Heyerdahl was
triumphant that he had demonstrated,
with tangible proof, that this was how
Polynesia had first been populated, his
other discoveries shocked him: He saw
firsthand the impact of rising sea levels
on island ecosystems, and was one of
the first scientists to express concern
about global warming. He dedicated
the rest of his life to this cause.
It is a fitting legacy, then, that one
of the most important projects in the
The fascinating thing about mangrove
trees is that they can actually sequester
five times as much CO 2 as rainforestsfight against climate change bears his
name, and his son, Bjørn Heyerdahl,
is its president. The Thor Heyerdahl
Climate Park in Pathein, Myanmar is an
exceptional success story.
In 2012, the 1,800 acres of mangrove
forest surrounding Pathein University
had been devastated by a combination
of charcoal burning and prawn farming.
Huge stretches of the land were
barren, and with the deforestation of
the mangrove trees, biodiversity and
livelihoods were also lost. Working with
Pathein University and the Myanmar
Ministry of Environmental Conservation
and Forestry, Worldview International
Foundation (www.wif.care) was asked to
restore the site, and by the end of 2015
they had rescued and planted no fewerabove Planting and
maintaining the mangrove
forests is labour intensive but
gives work to local womenthan 2.5 million trees. The site was
completely transformed, and it is
now known as the Thor Heyerdahl
Climate Park.
Every tree on Earth absorbs carbon
dioxide (CO 2 ) from the atmosphere
and locks it into the soil, which is why
cutting down rainforests speeds up
global warming: there is a significantly
reduced capacity for soaking up the CO 2
produced by burning fossil fuels, so it
can’t be locked away.
The fascinating thing about
mangrove trees is that they can
actually sequester five times as much
CO 2 as rainforests. In the course of
a mangrove’s 25-year-long lifetime,
the tree can lock away one tonne of
CO 2 , which is the same amount you’d