In Trees we unite – An Ecological solution to curb climate change (Ireland plan of action)

MEERGroen (in English MoreGreen) : Is an organisation founded by Ecologist Franke van der Laan, based in The Netherlands. Having worked for 25 years with various organisations, with a Top Down approach trying to implement ecological systems & change, he became disillusioned with the lack of progress due to bureaucracy, and business-only focus, leading him to the conclusion that the majority of mankind is persistent on a path of self-inflicted destruction.

In his own words : “since ca 1980 mankind is becoming a burden that mother earth cannot cope with any more: the resources that we pull out and the waste we put back cannot be buffered any longer by the world’s ecosystem. Politics and business is all about mankind,  (not the ecosystem) , about money ( not health and happiness), about short term interest (not leaving the world as a better place for our children) and about growth (in spite of the fact  that the ecosystem is collapsing around us).”

Franke however believes there is still plenty of optimism and energy and switched his approach to focus on bottom-up initiatives. The basic concept is that mankind is capable of achieving anything when it puts its mind to it:

“we can save collapsing banks in the credit crisis by finding 3000 billion euro in 2 months, we can close the entire world for fear of a Corona infection. Why should n’t we be capable of saving the world from a far worse climate crisis? ‘What we need to achieve, is to get the proverbial 5 % front runners mobilized, and that will change the entire system.”

Thus MEERGroen with a bottom up program was shaped with activities focused on ecology and on turning concern around into positive hands-on energy.

MEERGroen has a few leading principles; first of all it runs projects ‘8 days a week’ so there is no reason not to join for availability reasons. The second principle is that many different activities are offered to suit all interests and capabilities, from vegetable gardening, flower meadows, orchards, nature playgrounds,  insect hotels, managing estates, making blogs, vlogs, pictures, to nature education. Anybody with an interest in nature can find something to his taste. Within 12 years this has led to 1800 volunteers running 1100 ha in 70 projects,  200 of these are the core group and the rest is comprised of groups from companies, apprentices, team building and leadership courses.

MEERGroen  is an acronym summarising the working values ; Maatschappelijke (Social),Ecological ,Educational, Economical and Recreational benefits that can be achieved with active civil participation.

Franke calls this the ’1+1= 10 model’: the 5 MEERGroen values+ volunteer participation = tenfold benefits. With active citizens turning concerns about the environment into positive action, resulting in fun and a human population in balance with nature for at least 100.000 years.

Activities

MEERGroen activities are split into 2 main seasons:

– April to October the focus is on vegetable gardening and flower meadows

– November until March the focus is on forest and tree management.

15 years involvement in ecological forest management has led Franke to the following observations: forests are generally considered a cost factor rather than an asset or inspiration, due to the fact that most forest owners are thinking in economic terms. The effect being, that year upon year management budgets are cut with little budget left after 80 years. That has the consequence, that either forests are chopped with large machines every 1- 10 years,  or nothing is done and they are growing full with seedlings. In both cases millions of trees and hundreds of species will wither away.

By ecologically, recreationally,  and culturally managing such forests (in collaboration with owners who generally are all too willing to get that work done affordably), MEERGroen discovered the potential to make those saplings available to anybody concerned about climate and biodiversity, and is willing to offer space for the otherwise doomed saplings to grow to maturity.

MEER BOMEN NU (MORE TREES NOW) campaign.  A collaboration between MEERGroen, URGENDA & Caring Farmers

In 2009 the first 1000 trees were handed out by MEERGroen for free and each year those tree-hand-out-events grew in magnitude.

The tipping point came in 2020,  MEERGroen had 40.000 saplings ready for distribution, when Urgenda a national organization showed interest. Urgenda is world famous for its bold initiative to challenge the Dutch Government politics with its own promises and policies to address the climate issue. Urgenda stands for the urgent agenda for climate action. They promote 40-50  different actions: from becoming vegetarian, installing solar panels, driving electrical cars, to planting trees as a carbon sink. One mail in their network resulted a day later in an order for 100.000 trees. That was a challenge that MEERGroen could not ignore and 12 days later they had 110.000 trees available: 10.000 for their own region and 100.000 for Urgenda. Most of them went to Caring Farmers: farmers that look for more sustainable work practices rather than traditional export oriented industrial farming. By April 1, 2020 all trees had found homes and happy owners.

This success led to the birth of the meerbomen.nu campaign (More Trees Now).  In the summer of 2020 a few hundred interested volunteers throughout The Netherlands were trained in the method. A donation of 190.000 fruit trees (due in part to political tensions and Corona) provided a big boost. The handing out of indigenous trees and fruit trees generated massive interest and publicity in the national press and television.

The Tree Planner ; Facilitating massive participation

In 2021 the campaign grew to more than 3000 volunteers and a very useful ICT tool  The Tree Planner was designed and implemented.  The TreePlanner enables foresters, planting locations, volunteers and tree hubs to align supply and demand of trees locally and regionally.

Those participating indicate a preferred radius range, between 25-200 km and areas of interest for which they wish to receive notifications about events.

Land owners and tree planters can initiate harvesting or planting days for free.The only requirement is a hands-on support contribution, in cases where large areas are to be managed or large numbers of trees are requested.

Forest management is only done in the period when trees are at rest, between November 15 and March 15. The main focus is on harvesting saplings between 60 cm and 2 m in height, but larger specimens are also saved from special species (walnut, cherry trees, etc). Apart from saplings other means of propagation are also used: cuttings, runners, etc depending on the species.

Between November 15 and March 15 the focus is mainly on large (semi) professionals with numbers between 500 to 50.000 trees per location. They can setup events and advertise them through the Tree Planner.

Once a week an automated email from the Tree Planner is distributed to people, with all events for the coming weeks, within the range of interest that they registered.

Between March 15 en April 1 the focus is on the urban citizens, with widely publicized  ‘hand -out’ days. To prevent traffic chaos of thousands of people showing up for free trees, registration is required and max 50 people are allowed per half hour.

With an average of 1 sapling per m2, the  Dutch forested area of 500.000 ha has the potential for 5 billion saplings a year! All these saplings are supplied for free by mother nature, and the work force consists of people concerned about climate change, and willing to give their time for free as well. This way the campaigners hope to generate the will and positive energy to solve the climate crisis in a way that promotes ecological and social values (and ultimately, to unite mankind).

People who join in the effort generally get very enthusiastic. In this way we distance ourselves from a commercial model in favour of a ‘favour model’. This attitude has led to  tree nurseries and garden centers supplying free superfluous trees, trucking companies making their trucks available for transport, hotels making meeting and training facilities available and governments sponsoring the movement in return for the distribution of free trees to citizens… in unlimited numbers!

Internationalization

Tree planting to fix CO2 is very fashionable: In the Netherlands 37.000 ha of extra forest is the forest policy goal. In Ireland the current 11 % forest cover is to be upped to 18 % and also the EU climate policy aims at planting 3 billion trees before 2030. The problem is that commercial nurseries only start producing new trees when they see a secure profit. The consequence is that those trillions of trees have not been seeded yet. MEERGroen sees the More Trees Now  approach not as a competition of commercial nurseries but as complementary to the trees that commercial parties can supply. And since the goal is to add millions of km2 of new forest to fix all excess CO2, there is plenty of benefit for everyone.

Through the More Trees Now campaign1.8 million trees have been saved and planted in the last 3 years. It is thought it will  take 1 million km2 of new /extra forest, (assuming that forests on average over 10 years can fix 200 tons per ha) to pull all the excess CO2 out of the atmosphere. That is a substantial area, for which we need an ecological focus worldwide. But considering what is at stake with a climate that is running out of control and the futile attempts to keep on growing with technological measures, it is more than worthwhile.

Irish Visit during Tree Week

In March of 2023 MEERGroen visited Ireland during Tree Week meeting up with like-minded organizations and individuals to research International collaborations on combating the climate crisis.

The idea behind the visit was to target countries with similar conditions as in The Netherlands, so the program can be adapted easily, and where the level of interest in nature and concern about climate change and biodiversity loss is also similar. The ultimate goal is to run the program worldwide with the current focus on the EU with 27 countries.  In January 2023 Germany Mehrbaeume.jetzt was kicked off successfully. From March 18- March 28 2023 MEERGroen  went on tour in England, Scotland and Ireland to find partners for the More Trees Now campaign.

The main contact in Ireland was Orla Farrell, the driving force behind Easy Treasie who had very kindly organized daily activities involving schools and councils in Fingal, Swords and Wicklow where trees were planted and the MEERGroen method  was demonstrated , showing how many trees can be ‘saved’ and harvested.

One of the highlights was a visit Dunsany with Bob Hamilton: a 950 year old impressive estate of 1200 ha , where the 38thEarl, Randal Plunkett has started a 300 ha rewilding process with lots of potential to harvest and plant trees.

The Irish tree week also involved some meetings and lectures. They attended a lecture given by the Society of Irish Foresters and the National Botanic Gardens and learned how Ireland from 1901 onwards is working towards 18 % forest cover from 1 % and has now reached ca 11 %. They see potential for the More Trees Now approach to be of assistance in that process.  Several foresters and a Forest Council member were interested in further contacts.

In Wicklow they met with Diarmuid MCrann, founder of Trees4all and also planted some trees. They were hosted by Síolta Chroí an Eco Restoration Camp in Carrickmacross in the middle of a traditional dairy region where they discussed and demoed practices and hosted a webinar about Eco restoration, rewilding and the More Trees Now principles with some 40 attendees.

The March road trip made clear that there is interest and potential for a More Trees Now Campaign kickoff in the upcoming season 2023/2024, with at least 15 organizations and people expressing interest in Ireland and the UK.

Kick Off season 2023/2024 in Ireland, England and Scotland

Dates are set around  November 23 for saving trees, planting a climate forest and handing out trees around Wakelyn East Anglia in the UK . MEERGroen is hoping to have 2 other potential locations in Ireland, England or Scotland. This  will require a group of active participants to deal with the organization and announcements.

• The first action is to join in monthly Teams sessions to get the campaign organized before September 2023
• A couple of days before Kickoffs the MEERGroen team will do 1 or 2 on the job training sessions on locations, such as Corby,  Estate Dunsany in Ireland and/or Scotland and Northumberland.
• The decision to start low key and gradually build the campaign out or go nationwide from the start still needs to be determined. In either case the interest generated needs to be channeled through a website and tool such as the Tree Planner. These will need to be localised and available by September to channel responses.
• These programs are best run locally, so MEERGroen is looking for partners in Ireland, England and Scotland willing to take up the task to run the campaigns, including fund raising and publicity. Of course they are available for advice and backup.

Actions needed to proceed;

1. Funding to cover localisation and translation costs for the Tree planner tool in English with a useable location /postal code structure.
2. Land owners who are interested in assisting with their forest, where we can harvest/save trees
3. Tree hubs where we can temporarily store saplings and from where they are distributed
4. People and landowners who have space/land for tree planting
5. Partners who want to organize the campaign nationally, regionally or locally
6. Government bodies that facilitate and back up the entire process
7. Experienced foresters and ecologists willing to guide harvest and planting events and work with the volunteers groups
8. Logistical and nature-marketing people or organizations

Schedule:

Between June and September a plan of action needs to be formulated

From September to November the announcements/marketing campaigns will we held based on the Dutch and German experiences, growing momentum and availability of land owners locally.

Late November on the job training course with the MEERGroen team during the kick offs.

And then it is up the response from society and available creativity to use trees to unite mankind and address climate change and biodiversity  problems.

Please indicate you interest and availability in order for us to start organizing the campaigns and the kick off (monthly or weekly Teams  sessions) by contacting : info@stichtingmeergroen.nl  or text What’s app to 00316 48226490 Franke van Der Laan.