A university initiative plants 33,000 trees to fight climate change, COVID-19 poses a threat

Bangs Circular practices sustainable beekeeping across eight communities, launching the Tiwai Honey Project, which builds hand-made beehives to support the native bee population. This practice allows beekeepers to closely monitor the bees’ well-being, thus leading to more honey production and reforestation efforts. So far, the group has trained more than 400 local beekeepers.

Nairobi is using a unique restoration technique called the Miyawaki method to restore local ecosystems by creating forest islands in urban areas that have lost their green spaces. Since 2007, this reforestation method has established mini forests in three regions throughout the city, as the project has planted over 236,212 seedlings.

Women in villages throughout India and Bangladesh are “silent climate warriors” who plant mangrove trees as a way to mitigate the effects of rising waters. While it’s not always easy to convince their family members that they should do this, they have been able to grow an additional 2,000 acres of mangroves that can reduce the speed of waves and capture carbon dioxide. They also earn income, about $430 a year, for growing and planting saplings.

Cal Poly Humboldt's Native American Studies Department created an Indigenous food sovereignty research lab through a student-led, community-driven process that now supports Indigenous students' cultural connections, advances traditional ecological knowledge research, and demonstrates how Indigenous knowledge can be valued in higher education.

In Brazil's Amazon deforestation hotspot BR-163, small farmers and entrepreneurs are working to implement sustainable farming alternatives like agroecology, beekeeping and converting cattle pastures to grow local fruits to create a “bioeconomy,” despite a lack of institutional support.

Colleges across the United States are adopting the “campus as a living lab” approach to integrate climate change mitigation and environmental education into curriculums and combine them with efforts to make campuses more sustainable. Students across departments work on projects relevant to their degrees and the environment, many of which are implemented by the schools.

The residents of Kikandwa, Uganda, came together to create the Kikandwa Environmental Association to implement nature-based solutions in their community. The solutions are combatting climate change and generating more income than options with a negative environmental impact. For example, many people traded cutting trees to make charcoal for selling seedlings at the local tree nursery.

Medellín, Colombia, is combating the urban heat island effect by creating green corridors across the city. Over 2.5 million plants and trees were carefully selected to maximize impact and planted on buildings and along roads and waterways.

The nonprofit Africa Research Association Managing Development teaches communities in Obanliku, Nigeria, to run their own businesses in things like gardening, soap making, and marketing, and helps establish cocoa cooperatives to keep them from depending on deforestation for income. The program also requires communities to designate parts of the forest for conservation and trains members to protect those areas.

Plant Your Future is working with Peruvian farmers to reforest the Amazon rainforest by helping them earn an income while growing trees instead of doing so by cutting trees down. The charity does outreach, teaches farmers about agroforestry, intercropping, and the carbon market, and then supports them throughout the transition to those practices.