Aadya Joshi looks out at the eucalyptus trees (桉树). They were planted to take the place of a forest that was cleared for wood. The view doesn’t make Joshi happy. Eucalyptus trees don’t grow naturally here in India. “Native (本土的) trees should have been planted,”she says.
Joshi started The Right Green. The group teaches people how to bring back forests by growing native trees. Once, Earth was home to 6 trillion trees. Now, only about 3 trillion are left. “Planting new trees to replace those that have been lost sounds like a good idea,” she says. “But what people are doing in many places is not restoring (恢复) forests. They’re just replanting. There’s a difference.”
Trees are important to the health of the planet. They help clean the air. They’re also a source of food and medicine. But 46% of the world’s trees have been cut down. Some actions to replant trees have made environmental problems even worse. This happened in Chile, in South America. Big companies cut down forests for wood. Then they replanted trees. But they used the wrong kinds of trees and created tree plantations (人造林).
“They’re not really what we imagine a forest to be,” says Robert Heilmayr, who studies the forest. “These trees are more like crops. At cleaning the air, they are not as good as forests.”
Now, a program called AFR100 is started in Africa. It says restoring native forests is more helpful. It will restore almost 100 million hectares (公项) of African land by 2030.
【小题1】Why were eucalyptus trees planted in Joshi’s hometown?【小题2】How does Joshi like planting new trees to replace native forests?
【小题3】Why do some actions make things worse?
【小题4】Where is AFR100 started?
【小题5】What are we supposed to do according to AFR100?
