Can you imagine how big 550 hectares are? That’s 5,500,000 square meters – in other words the size of about 770 soccer fields. You have to admit, that’s a whole lot of space. And it’s that same amount of space that one man, Jadav Payeng, filled with trees in Brahmaputra, India, over a span of 30 years.
It all started way back in 1979, according to the Times of India . That year, a huge flood washed a lot of snakes ashore on a sandbar. 16-year-old Payeng went there, the day the waters had receded. He found the snakes dead, and that experience changed his live. “The snakes died in the heat, without any tree cover,” he said to the newspaper. When he tried to ask the forest department to plant trees there, he made little headway. Nothing would grow there, the department answered. He should try growing bamboo on the sandbank instead, they told him. So that’s what he did.
Forestry officials in the region first learned of this new forest in 2008. Since then, they’ve come to recognize Payeng’s efforts as truly remarkable. “We’re amazed at Payeng,” says Assistant Conservator of Forests, Gunin Saikia. “Had he been in any other country, he would have been made a hero.”

 

It takes a village, goes the saying – and in fighting climate change, many environmentalists say it will take the world. A group of Southern African countries are teaming up to better respond to the challenges of climate change by combining climate studies across the entire region. Angola, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia have all agreed to be part of “SASSCAL,” or the Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management. The project is being funded by Germany.

Because climate change is affecting so many millions of people across Africa, SASSCAL countries want to figure out ways to adapt, to manage the wealth of natural resources in the region. to institute sustainable land management and improve living conditions. That’s no easy job, but with research institutes from every participating country working together to study climate change and its impact on resources, the organizers believe a lot can be achieved. And, it sets an important example for the rest of the continent and the world…

With World Water Day, the United Nations will draw attention towards mankind’s water consumption, especially in industrial nations. Today, about 7 billion people live on our planet. The number is expected to grow by about 2 billion by the year 2050. Of course, each one of them will need water. That includes drinking water as well as water used in every day life, like for showering or food production. All together, that adds up to a lot of water. Just keep in mind, producing one kilo of beef consumes 15,000 liters of water, and one kilo of wheat guzzles up 1,500 liters.
The United Nations recommends a sustainable diet. That means we should be aware of how water-intensive products are. We also should reduce the amount of food we waste, says the UN. 30% of the food produced worldwide is thrown away. The water used to produce it is therefore lost forever. You can learn more about the World Water Day on the official UN website.  The latest Environmental Outlook report by the OECD also draws a bleak picture on rising sea levels that are swallowing cities and millions of people who will be suffering water shortages.
The UN also provides a very interesting FAQ about the value of water. Facts and figures about water can be found from the National Geographic.  If you are a U.S. resident, the National Geographic provides another interesting feature, a water footprint calculator to estimate your water use on a daily basis.

Volet végétal from Nicolas Barreau on Vimeo.

If you live in a big city or even a megacity, in high apartement buildings, you are certainly aware, that these cities never have enough public green spaces. But there is help. If you need a green view to lift up your mood, or you just want to grow some tomatoes, than you will find the idea in the video above interesting. The Paris based designers Barre & Charbonnet have build a small garden-like construction, that you could use either way, inside or outside the rooms. The idea is to create a “micro-habitat” and to “reinterprete the hanging gardens”, the designers say on their homepage.  Besides: You will have always a green horizon.

The World Wind Energy Association (WWEA) has some good news for the world market for wind turbines. Not only that the market has recovered last year, it also set a new record: 42 gigawatt of new capacity had been installed in 2011, the worldwide total capacity rose up to 239 GW. According to the WWEA todays wind power would be enough to cover 3 % of the world’s electricity demand. China is the biggest player in the business, says the WWEA. The country installed around 18 GW of new wind turbines within 2011, coming to a total capacity of 63 GW – that’s more than one fourth of the global wind capacity. The second largest market for new wind turbines was again the USA, followed by India and Germany, which grew about 2 GW.