The role of drones in saving the planet isn’t limited to just tracking climate change or monitoring animal populations, drones could be used to plant billions of trees. Deforestation has been a major issue ever since the Industrial Revolution, with more than 10 billion trees being cut down every year. With drones, however, humans would be able to seed-bomb areas and plant trees at a faster rate than ever before.
Instead of doing surveillance or carrying out military missions, the drones from BioCarbon Engineering are taking on a decidedly more progressive task: planting trees and reversing deforestation. Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have taken off in popularity recently, with hobbyists and professionals alike using these small remotely-guided devices for everything from delivering packages to surveying wildlife populations, but one startup has a very ambitious plan for their drones, and one that could have a huge positive impact on global deforestation. “We are going to counter industrial scale deforestation using industrial scale reforestation. Destruction of global forests from lumber, mining, agriculture, and urban expansion destroys 26 billion trees each year. We believe that this industrial scale deforestation is best combated using the latest automation technologies.” – BioCarbon Engineering