Vol­un­teers plant trees in the Low­er Oder Valley *)
(25.03.2010)

 

“Do not com­plain and com­plain, but act and dig is the mot­to of the six young tree planters from Wiki­Woods, who on March 27, 2010 in the core area of the large-scale nature con­ser­va­tion project of nation­wide rep­re­sen­ta­tive impor­tance in the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many in the Low­er Oder Val­ley grabbed spades and hoes and did some­thing to low­er the car­bon diox­ide con­cen­tra­tion doing in the air, name­ly plant­i­ng trees. It is well known that CO is gen­er­at­ed when trees grow ₂ fil­tered from the air, stored in cel­lu­lose in a long-term harm­less and cli­­mate-neu­­tral way. In the­o­ry, you can plant trees any­where, but prac­ti­cal­ly only where the landown­er agrees. In addi­tion, the tree plant­i­ng should also make sense, if pos­si­ble, for nature con­ser­va­tion, forestry, agri­cul­ture or tourism.

 

In Bran­den­burg, more wood has been felled than regrowth for some time, in the forests, espe­cial­ly on the beau­ti­ful Bran­den­burg avenues, which are becom­ing few­er and few­er. This pol­i­cy of the respon­si­ble Bran­den­burg state gov­ern­ment also accel­er­ates the pre­dom­i­nant­ly neg­a­tive cli­mate change.

The club, on the oth­er hand, wants to set an exam­ple. As the own­er of the land, he has his pas­tures, on which exten­sive organ­ic graz­ing is car­ried out, fenced in with pol­lard­ed wil­lows, a nat­ur­al green fence like in grandfather’s time. The monot­o­nous agri­cul­tur­al land­scape, which has large­ly been cleared up to date, is becom­ing more and more pleas­ing to look at, loos­ened up and struc­tured in terms of nat­ur­al space. New habi­tats for ver­te­brates and inver­te­brates are emerg­ing. The graz­ing cat­tle receive shade and, as already men­tioned, the CO ₂ is bound in the wood in a cli­­mate-neu­­tral way over the long term. Every­one ben­e­fits from the campaign.

Old maps show that in the Mid­dle Ages two thirds of the Oder flood­plain were still cov­ered with quar­ry for­est, today it is only a few per­cent. This devel­op­ment can at least par­tial­ly be cor­rect­ed by plant­i­ng pastures.

And the nice thing about it is that all that is sen­si­ble and use­ful can also be fun. Doing some­thing for the future of peo­ple and our plan­et in a com­mu­ni­ty of young peo­ple makes sense and makes us hap­py. “If I knew that tomor­row the world would end, I would plant an apple tree today,” said the Ger­man reformer Mar­tin Luther. ”

Since 2007, the year Wiki­Woods was found­ed, the vol­un­tary ini­tia­tive has plant­ed around 30,000 trees. A small bunch of com­mit­ted Berlin­ers thought about how they could work sen­si­bly for cli­mate pro­tec­tion and at the same time reach and inspire a large group of peo­ple. Plant­i­ng trees was the solu­tion: This is how region­al cli­mate pro­tec­tion is com­bined with envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion and, last but not least, lots and lots of fun. Through the inter­net plat­form www.wikiwoods.org, vol­un­teer tree planters can find each oth­er all over Ger­many in order to car­ry out region­al plant­i­ng campaigns.

Thomas Berg
CEO

*) We will send you pho­tos of the plant­i­ng cam­paign imme­di­ate­ly by email on request if you do not find the time to come to the Untere Oder Val­ley and make your own.