(gentle music)
- [Lydia] Welcome to the Lessons from Lab & Life podcast,
brought to you by New England Biolabs.
I'm your host, Lydia Morrison,
and here's hoping this show offers you some new perspective.
Today I'm joined once more
by Reforest The Tropics Executive Director, Greg Powell.
Reforest The Tropics is a nonprofit organization
working to reduce atmospheric carbon through reforestation.
I first met Greg a couple of years ago,
as NEB was on the brink of supporting
a 100 hectare reforestation project in Costa Rica,
which was managed by Reforest The Tropics.
Hi, Greg, welcome back to the NEB podcast,
I'm so glad you could join us.
- [Greg] Yes, thank you for having me, Lydia.
- [Lydia] So, for those in our audience
who aren't familiar yet with Reforest The Tropics,
could you explain the organization's mission?
- [Greg] Yes, the mission of Reforest The Tropics
is to create a reforestation model that's improved
over the currently available options
or the historical options.
If we look at the history of reforestation,
it's got a checkered past in terms of overall success.
Typically, what happens is, projects that are geared towards
generating some sort of income for partnering land owners
or landowners within the tropics, especially,
need to have a financial component to them.
In other words, they need to generate income
for the landowners in order to incentivize them to
participate over the long-term.
And how that has most often been accomplished
is through the creation of single-species monocultures.
In other words, people are farming trees,
and although it is effective in terms of carbon capture,
and it does generate income for those land owners,
it's not really the approach that we wanna take
for a wider global strategy towards reforestation.
So, where Reforest The Tropics comes in
is still putting a focus on the needs of those landowners,
so we can get roots in the ground,
but doing so in a much more environmentally
and ecologically responsible way.
We are developing and deploying a mixed-species model
that is biodiverse, is healthy for the environment,
that also meets those needs of the landowners
to get them to participate in the project
over the long-term.
So, our model is really trying to change
the way that we approach reforestation,
again, especially within the tropics,
to create a competitive option that is an improvement over
what is most commonly being planted.
- [Lydia] So, can you tell us a little bit more
about the mix of trees that are planted?
- [Greg] Yes, so, over the years,
we've experimented with a number of different models
in terms of different species that we've mixed together.
Typically, we do include one primary species
in all of our projects,
the scientific name is Araucaria hunsteinii,
commonly known as the Klinky.
And this tree has some really special and unique properties
that allow it to be so effective for our needs.
Our model is, because of the use of Klinky,
we're able to essentially double the carbon capture
of most other reforestation models.
We mix the Klinky with any number of species
that are native to Costa Rica,
where we are planting our forest.
For example, in the New England Biolabs project,
we have about 30 different species that we're using,
and those species all have their specific functions.
Some of them are included specifically for wildlife purposes
to encourage more fauna in the fores,
some are designed to generate the profits or the income
that the landowners need, some of them are included for
the purposes of long-term carbon capture.
So yeah, we're trying to create
as biodiverse a forest as possible
that still is highly efficient in carbon capture,
and again, going back to the income piece for the farms.
- [Lydia] Yeah, it sounds like a really well-designed forest
that you're implementing,
and I love hearing more about the species that are used
in the NEB forest that you're helping us plant.
Could you tell us about how much carbon
the forests that you plant are capturing every year?
- [Greg] Sure, so, we conduct our annual measurement
and we've been doing so for over 20 years.
And then we've also gone through
third-party verification process,
which has revealed that our forest on average
are sequestering 25 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent
per hectare per year.
If you look at the literature
for most reforestation or forestry projects in general,
again, that's about double what you would expect on average.
- [Lydia] Wow, that's pretty amazing.
So, where are you currently replanting forests?
Is it only in Costa Rica?
- [Greg] Yeah, right now we are
strictly operating in Costa Rica.
We've been there for decades
and it's a really comfortable place to operate.
Costa Rica has a long history with environmental stewardship
when we're engaging potential partners in the project.
I think a lot of people understand
the aims and goals of the project.
And then on a policy basis,
it is really friendly towards reforestation.
So, it's been a really effective laboratory for us,
but we've now reached the point
where we do wanna expand to other countries.
So, I have ongoing conversations
with stakeholders in Latin America
and even in Southeast Asia, because if we do wanna
really make a difference in the climate change equation,
we have to really plant a lot more of our forest.
- [Lydia] Yeah, I hope that comes to fruition,
I'd love to see more forest being planted
throughout the world to help offset the carbon emissions.
I think it's gonna be really hard to meet some of the goals
that leaders have set out for in various countries
in terms of reducing carbon emissions,
and I think that reforestation can be a really powerful tool
in helping us achieve that. - It is,
reforestation is a very efficient, cost-effective way
to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
It's not the only tool we need, but it is essential,
it's really an unavoidable piece of the puzzle
because we do need to physically intervene
to pull that excess CO2 out of the atmosphere.
So, we are working on...
I say we, globally,
the world is working on some other technologies,
but we have this ancient approach
that has so many other benefits beyond the carbon aspect,
and again, it's a really cost-effective way
to deal with emissions.
- [Lydia] Yeah, speaking of those other benefits,
do you have any stories that you can share about
biodiversity success that you've seen
in reforestation projects? - Absolutely,
so, the way this project was conceived many years ago
was it was really based on the carbon aspect,
how do we accumulate carbon in a given land area
and have that make sense for those land owners?
So, we always knew that we wanted to create
a mixed-species model,
and with that comes a certain level of biodiversity,
but there was never a really strong focus on
the habitat that we'd be creating.
So, over the years, it's been a very pleasant surprise
to see how healthy, from an ecological standpoint,
the forests actually are.
Within our forest, we have documented,
essentially, every fauna species
that you can imagine in Costa Rica.
This includes some endangered species, threatened species,
and it also includes very elusive
and iconic species of Costa Rica, such as the jaguar, tapir,
the macaws, toucans, et cetera, et cetera.
So, in some of our older forests, we've set up camera traps
and have been successful
in capturing images of these animals,
we also regularly see tracks
from some of the harder animals to find,
the jaguar and the tapir,
we regularly see tracks in our forest.
In fact, I was just down in Costa Rica a couple weeks ago,
and about 100 yards from the New England Biolabs forest,
I saw a large tapir track in the mud,
and these are very rare animals.
People that work in the field within Costa Rica
can go their whole life and never even see one.
So for me, it's really exciting
that they are residents within our forest.
- [Lydia] Yeah, I think it's exciting too,
and I've really enjoyed seeing the images
on Reforest The Tropics, Instagram account,
and other social media accounts.
I always get excited when I see
a print being shared or a still image captured
of one of the animals exploring your forest,
so I think that's really awesome.
- [Greg] In fact, for the NEB project, as we were planting,
so we required a small army of workers,
and they were camping on the site,
just for ease of operations.
And we saw so much jaguar activity in the area
that we had to change it from a camp
to building wooden structures, to protect the workers.
So, we know there's quite a bit of jaguar movement
throughout the NEB forest already,
and we expect that to grow as the forest matures.
- [Lydia] Well, we love hearing about it.
So, I was wondering Greg, if COVID-19 has had any effect
on your efforts in reforestation.
- [Greg] It has, it hasn't been drastic effects.
I can give full credit to my team in Costa Rica
who picked up a lot of the slack
on some of the pieces that I couldn't do
for lack of being able to travel.
So from an operational standpoint,
we've weathered the pandemic quite well,
all of our projects are in excellent condition.
For me personally, I think the hardest part has been
the relationship end of things.
So, it's really important
to build those relationships with our partners in Costa Rica
and of course that's most effective in person.
And then beyond that, just I think a reality
that most nonprofits have faced through this
is the financial piece.
There's been sort of less disposable income
for charitable giving, even on company level.
I think we've seen that people or companies
have been a little bit more reluctant
to make sizeable investments into their sustainability.
So yeah, our fundraising has taken a small hit,
overall, though, I think we're in a really good position,
and as we hopefully emerge from this pandemic,
we are geared up for major expansion in the future.
- [Lydia] Well, I can't wait to see that.
Speaking of, where do you hope to see Reforest The Tropics
in the next five or 10 years?
- [Greg] Well, our goal is to make a tangible difference
in the climate change equation.
We feel that or we know that we have a model that works,
that's improved over most other options that are available.
So, our goal is to plant our forest
in the millions of hectares, where right now,
where we're far below that.
We are exploring various strategies to accomplish that.
I think for me, one of the more exciting one
is a Training the Trainers model,
where we invite other nonprofits,
government agencies from throughout the tropics,
to learn about our model onsite in Costa Rica,
train them how to execute it,
and allow them to go and replicate
in any number of countries.
We feel that's an effective way to scale our model.
Beyond that, internally,
we're looking for new partners all the time.
As I'd mentioned, we're looking to expand
beyond the borders of Costa Rica,
plant as much as we possibly can because
this climate change issue,
we have a very short window to deal with it,
and we have a very effective tool
with the RTT model to help.
- [Lydia] Yeah, I think so too, and I'm so happy to hear
that you're sharing your knowledge
and the lessons that Reforest The Tropics has learned
over the long life that it's had so far
and really the forward thinking aspects
that you've brought to the table.
It's really nice to be able to hear that
you're sharing those with other individuals,
who can bring that knowledge to other countries
and really help reforest lots of areas around the globe
that can support these types of diverse forests,
to help draw the carbon out of the atmosphere,
to really help us meet some of these environmental goals
that are quite lofty, but so important
for the survival of our planet and our species, I think.
So, I really appreciate your efforts
and it's really great to hear
that you're spreading that knowledge throughout the world.
- [Greg] Yes, thank you,
we've always maintained the philosophy of open source
in terms of our findings and our model.
Again, we're looking at the big picture here
of removing over a billion metric tons of excess CO2
from the atmosphere.
So, we're certainly not gonna be able to do that on our own,
so, we wanna share what we think is a improvement
to anybody who's interested. - It's a daunting task,
and we appreciate your efforts.
- Thank you. - And I hope to
speak to you again, sometime in the future and hear
how the reforestation movement has spread across the world
and to hear how the flora and fauna are thriving
in the forest that you've planted for New England Biolabs.
- [Greg] Yes, thank you, anytime, I'd be happy
to speak with you again. - Thanks so much
for making time in your schedule today, Greg,
we'll talk soon.
- [Greg] All right, thanks a lot, Lydia. Take care.
(gentle music)
- [Lydia] Thank you for joining me today.
If you'd like to learn more about Reforest The Tropics,
or if you'd like to sponsor
a reforestation project of your own,
please check out reforestthetropics.org.
Hope you'll join us for our next episode,
when we begin a series focused
on infectious disease research, diagnostics, detection,
and surveillance.