Turkey’s booming aviation industry is planning new development that will wipe out over half a million old-growth trees. Istanbul aims to build its third airport on nearly a square kilometer of previously pristine forest in the northern, European part of the city, on Lake Terkos near the Black Sea. With six runways and an annual […]
The Jewish version of Arbor Day Tu B’Shevat is more relevant today than ever. Transformed from a general agricultural holiday into a dedicated arboreal conservation initiative in the early 1900’s, this celebration takes place towards the end of January during the Hebrew month of Shevat. This holiday addresses the travesty that trees previously revered by […]
Next Wednesday activists will hold a public forum to democratically demand access to the Horsh Beirut urban park. In 1696, the Horsh Beirut Pine forest used to be as large as 1,250,000 square meters but the Crusaders, Mamluks, Ottomans, and World War II allies each took their turn plundering its timber in order to build ships and weapons. Further damage […]
Abu Dhabi leads the Gulf Region in environmental innovation. This time, a desert forest irrigated with treated wastewater. Last year we were somewhat alarmed that the UAE had ambitions to plant one million trees. Even though the carbon sponging benefits are potentially enormous, the water required to keep said trees alive might have overwhelmed the […]
It can take decades of forest growth before the ‘cooling’ CO2 sequestration can overtake these opposing ‘warming’ processes, finds new study on Yatir Forest (above). We’ve been buying carbon credits, and have been busy planting trees hoping to stave off climate change, but the simple formula we’ve learned in recent years – forests remove the […]