Reforestation in Germany, Schwarzenborn

About the Project

Background

Forests capture lots of CO₂ all over the world by converting the CO₂ from the surrounding air into plant mass. Unfortunately, the number of trees decreases globally by forest clearance, drought and pests. Approximately 33 % of Germany are covered by forests. But by now, trees suffer during the hot and especially dry summers. These summers are more and more often followed by storms in autumn and winter, partially leading to uprooting within large areas. If trees managed to cope with that, they will have to deal with an increasing amount of pests in spring, like the bark beetle attacking spruces. This chain reaction can just be stopped by planting diverse and climate-adapted tree species. Therefore, reforestation of areas in Germany can help to balance our CO₂ emissions.

The project

During our project, we will replant trees on an area in Schwarzenborn in North-Hesse, which lost lots of trees to the bark beetle and environmental factors during the last year. We are planning a TwB-reforestation-weekend in autumn 2021, where we will seed as many trees as possible. The project funds from the TwB-CO₂-account and additional donations will be invested in tree seedlings completely. In cooperation with the Kuratorium für Waldarbeit und Forsttechnik, forestry technical schools and tree nurseries we care to sustainably replant the area using suitable tree species. Each hectare of forest replanted will bind approximately 13 tons of CO₂ per year! We plan to reforest around 3 ha using the funds from the CO₂-account and hope that it will become even more by additional donations. On the same area as our reforestation-weekend, the Kuratorium für Waldarbeit und Forsttechnik holds one of the worlds largest forestry fairs in that area, the KWF-Tagung. TwB will also be there and present information about sustainability in development projects and especially about our projects dealing with „Agro-forestry“. So come and visit us there!

Sustainability at TwB

Technology without borders causes quite a lot of CO₂ emission due to projects in developing countries. The main reason is that material and people have to go from point A to point B, mostly via airplane and combustion of fossil fuels. We see and address that problem. It is an upcoming idea to compensate ones personal CO₂ emission (e.g. from a flight) by a kind of modern indulgence via converting the amount of CO₂ into an amount of money and investing that into a project potentially binding or saving CO₂. Since two years, we also try to soothe our CO₂-conscience by paying money into a TwB CO₂-account. We do now have enough money, nearly 4000 €, to launch a TwB project which binds as much CO₂ as possible. There was a call for projects within the organization to apply for the money from the CO₂-account. As it always goes, a decision was difficult in the end, since several promising projects were suggested. The CO₂account was therefore filled up a bit by TwB to finally support three very different projects. All three show, apart from the binding of CO₂, advantages for Technology without borders, such as the acquisition of qualified knowledge about reforestation, team building, serving as flagship project in a certain region or improvement of life situation in developing countries. This was also the reason for the support of TwB projects instead of donating to projects of other organizations.