ADVERTISEMENTAnd yet, there is urgency to that work — forests are one of the planet’s first lines of defense against climate change, absorbing as much as a quarter of man-made carbon emissions each year. As forests have shrunk, however, so has an already overloaded Earth’s capacity to cope with carbon emissions. They are managed by groups with a sustained commitment to monitoring forests, not just one-off tree planting events. On Cheat Mountain and at other former mining sites across Appalachia, more than a million acres of former forests are in similar arrested development. Green Forests Work has reforested around 800 acres within the Monongahela, and it is taking a similar approach to other former mining sites across Appalachia, having reforested around 4,500 total acres since 2009.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer September 30, 2019 00:56 UTC