Using drones to save forests

Every year, way more trees are cut down than are planted

For years, technology has helped the commercial logging industry cut down billions of trees annually. Now, a reforestation startup wants to use tech start repairing that damage. Flash Forest uses drones to reforest areas affected by logging wildfire ecological blight at 10x the speed of a human. Deforestation is the second leading cause of climate change. Its collateral effects are also damaging the global ecosystem according to UN FAO.

“We are a Canadian-based reforestation company that uses drone technology to rapidly increase the rate of reforestation while drastically reducing the cost. Every year, the planet loses about 13 billion trees and regains less than half of that. So, despite the reforestation efforts across the planet, we're still losing this battle and we needed a solution that was scalable. That was quick. We're able to plant about one tree a second right now, and that's the type of speed that's going to be required to actually start winning this battle. Everyone knows that trees produce oxygen, but they also refill aquifers. They prevent erosion and they provide homes to animals. We've lost 60 percent of biodiversity or a ton of wild animal fish, reptile populations on the planet in the last 50 years. The issue of climate change has been massively accelerated by the use of technology. Think about airplanes. Think about vehicles. Think about resource extraction. However, reforestation is using humans on the ground with bags and shovels. It hasn't changed in the last century. So right now, we want to actually tip the scales and use technology for regeneration. Overall, in the dialog when it comes to just the state of the environment, often sounds like it's a battle that's being lost. We want to change that conversation”, Bryce Jones, founder - Flash Forest tells Brut.

Flash Forest’s concept is to use cutting-edge unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to plant a billion trees

At full capacity, the company says it can plant 100,000 seed pods per day. Tree planting has a 25% injury rate. Jones hopes with his project, technology can be seen as a tool in the climate change battle based on reports by Flash Forest.

Brut.