NEB Podcast #43 -
Transcript
Interviewers: Lydia Morrison, Marketing Communications Writer & Podcast Host, New England Biolabs, Inc.
Interviewees: Greg Powell, Executive Director, Reforest The Tropics
Lydia Morrison:
Welcome to the Lessons from Lab & Life podcast brought to you by New England Biolabs. I'm your host, Lydia Morrison, and here's hoping this show offers you some new perspective. Today I'm joined once more by Reforest The Tropics, Executive Director Greg Powell. Reforest The Tropics is a nonprofit organization working to reduce atmospheric carbon through reforestation. I first met Greg a couple of years ago, as NEB was on the brink of supporting a 100 hectare reforestation project in Costa Rica, which was managed by Reforest The Tropics. Hi, Greg, welcome back to the NEB podcast. I'm so glad you could join us.
Greg Powell:
Yes, thank you for having me, Lydia.
Lydia Morrison:
So, for those in our audience who aren't familiar yet with Reforest The Tropics, could you explain the organization's mission?
Greg Powell:
Yes. The mission of Reforest The Tropics is to create a reforestation model that's improved over the currently available options or the historical options. If we look at the history of reforestation, it's got a sort of a checkered past in terms of overall success. Typically, what happens is projects that are geared towards generating some sort of income for partnering land owners or landowners within the tropics, especially, need to have a financial component to them. In other words, they need to generate income for the landowners in order to incentivize them to participate over the long-term. And how that has most often been accomplished is through the creation of single-species monocultures. In other words, people are farming trees and although it is effective in terms of carbon capture, and it does generate income for those land owners, it's not really the approach that we want to take for a sort of a wider global strategy towards reforestation.
Greg Powell:
So, where Reforest The Tropics comes in is still putting a focus on the needs of those landowners, so we can get roots in the ground, but doing so in a much more environmentally and ecologically responsible way. We are developing and deploying a mixed-species model that is biodiverse, is healthy for the environment, that also meets those needs of the landowners to get them to participate in the project over the long-term. So, our model is really trying to change the way that we approach reforestation again, especially within the tropics to create a competitive option that is an improvement over what is most commonly being planted.
Lydia Morrison:
So, can you tell us a little bit more about the mix of trees that are planted?
Greg Powell:
Yes. So, over the years, we've experimented with a number of different models in terms of different species that we've mixed together. Typically, we do include one primary species in all of our projects. The scientific name is Araucaria hunsteinii, commonly known as the Klinky. And this tree has some really special and unique properties that allow it to be so effective for our needs. Our model is because of the use of Klinky, we're able to essentially double the carbon capture of most other reforestation models. We mix the Klinky with any number of species that are native to Costa Rica, where we are planting our forest. For example, in the New England Biolabs project, we have about 30 different species that we're using. And those species all have their specific functions. Some of them are included specifically for wildlife purposes to encourage more fauna in the forest.
Greg Powell:
Some are designed to generate the profits or the income that the landowners need. Some of them are included for the purposes of long-term carbon capture. So yeah, we're trying to create is biodiverse a forest as possible that still is highly efficient in carbon capture. And again, going back to the income piece for the farms.
Lydia Morrison:
Yeah. It sounds like a really well-designed forest that you're implementing. And I love hearing more about the species that are used in the NEB forest that you're helping us plant. Could you tell us about how much carbon the forests that you plant are capturing every year?
Greg Powell:
Sure. So, we conduct our annual measurement and we've been doing so for over 20 years. And then we've also gone through third-party verification process, which has revealed that our forest on average are sequestering 25 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per hectare per year. If you look at the literature for most reforestation or forestry projects in general, again, that's about double what you would expect on average.
Lydia Morrison:
Wow. That's pretty amazing. So, where are you currently replanting forests? Is it only in Costa Rica?
Greg Powell:
Yeah. Right now we are strictly operating in Costa Rica. We've been there for decades and it's a really comfortable place to operate. Costa Rica has a long history with environmental stewardship when we're engaging potential partners in the project. I think a lot of people understand the aims and goals of the project. And then on a policy basis, it is really friendly towards reforestation. So, it's been a really effective laboratory for us, but we've now reached the point where we do want to expand to other countries. So, I have ongoing conversations with stakeholders in Latin America and even in Southeast Asia, because if we do want to really make a difference in the climate change equation, we have to really plant a lot more of our forest.
Lydia Morrison:
Yeah. I hope that comes to fruition. I'd love to see more forest being planted throughout the world to help offset the carbon emissions. I think it's going to be really hard to meet some of the goals that leaders have set out for in various countries in terms of reducing carbon emissions. And I think that reforestation can be a really powerful tool in helping us achieve that.
Greg Powell:
It is. Reforestation is a very efficient, cost-effective way to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It's not the only tool we need, but it is essential. It's really an unavoidable piece of the puzzle because we do need to physically intervene to pull that excess CO2 out of the atmosphere. So, we are working on... I say we, globally, the world is working on some other technologies, but we have this ancient approach that has so many other benefits beyond the carbon aspect. And again, it's a really cost-effective way to deal with emissions.
Lydia Morrison:
Yeah. Speaking of those other benefits, do you have any stories that you can share about biodiversity success that you've seen in reforestation projects?
Greg Powell:
Absolutely. So, the way this project was conceived many years ago was it was really based on the carbon aspect. How do we accumulate carbon in a given land area and have that make sense for those land owners? So, we always knew that we wanted to create a mixed-species model and with that comes a certain level of biodiversity, but there was never a really strong focus on the habitat that we'd be creating. So over the years, it's been a very pleasant surprise to see how healthy, from an ecological standpoint, the forests actually are. Within our forest, we have documented essentially every fauna species that you can imagine in Costa Rica. This includes some endangered species, threatened species. And it also includes the very elusive and iconic species of Costa Rica, such as the jaguar, tapir, the macaws, toucans, et cetera, et cetera.
Greg Powell:
So, in some of our older forests, we've set up camera traps and have been successful in capturing images of these animals. We also regularly see tracks from some of the harder animals to find, the jaguar and the tapir. We regularly see tracks in our forest. In fact, I was just down in Costa Rica a couple weeks ago, and about a hundred yards from the New England Biolabs forest, I saw a large tapir track in the mud, and these are very rare animals. People that work in the field within Costa Rica can go their whole life and never even see one. So for me, it's really exciting that they are residents within our forest.
Lydia Morrison:
Yeah, I think it's exciting too. And I've really enjoyed seeing the images on Reforest The Tropics, Instagram account and other social media accounts. I always get excited when I see a print being shared or a still image captured of one of the animals exploring your forest. So I think that's really awesome.
Greg Powell:
In fact, for the NEB project, as we were planting, so we required a small army of workers and they were camping on the site, just for ease of operations. And we saw so much jaguar activity in the area that we had to change it from a camp to building wooden structures, to protect the workers. So, we know there's quite a bit of jaguar movement throughout the NEB forest already, and we expect that to grow as the forest matures.
Lydia Morrison:
Well, we love hearing about it. So, I was wondering Greg, if COVID-19 has had any effect on your efforts in reforestation.
Greg Powell:
It has. It hasn't been drastic effects. I can give full credit to my team in Costa Rica who picked up a lot of the slack on some of the pieces that I couldn't do for lack of being able to travel. So from an operational standpoint, we've weathered the pandemic quite well. All of our projects are in excellent condition. For me personally, I think the hardest part has been the relationship end of things. So, it's really important to build those relationships with our partners in Costa Rica and of course that's most effective in person. And then beyond that, just I think a reality that most nonprofits have faced through this is the financial piece. There's been sort of less disposable income for charitable giving, even on company level. I think we've seen that people or companies have been a little bit more reluctant to make sizeable investments into their sustainability. So yeah, our fundraising has taken a small hit. Overall though, I think we're in a really good position. And as we hopefully emerge from this pandemic, we are geared up for major expansion in the future.
Lydia Morrison:
Well, I can't wait to see that. Speaking of, where do you hope to see Reforest The Tropics in the next five or 10 years?
Greg Powell:
Well, our goal is to make a tangible difference in the climate change equation. We feel that or we know that we have a model that works, that's improved over most other options that are available. So, our goal is to plant our forest in the millions of hectares, where right now, where we're far below that. We are exploring various strategies to accomplish that. I think for me, one of the more exciting one is a Training the Trainers model, where we invite other nonprofits, government agencies from throughout the tropics to learn about our model onsite in Costa Rica, train them how to execute it and allow them to go and replicate in any number of countries. We feel that's an effective way to scale our model. Beyond that, internally, we're looking for new partners all the time. As I'd mentioned, we're looking to expand beyond the borders of Costa Rica, plant as much as we possibly can because this climate change issue, we have a very short window to deal with it, and we have a very effective tool with the RTT model to help.
Lydia Morrison:
Yeah, I think so too. And I'm so happy to hear that you're sharing your knowledge and the lessons that Reforest The Tropics has learned over the long life that it's had so far and really the forward thinking aspects that you've brought to the table. It's really nice to be able to hear that you're sharing those with other individuals, who can bring that knowledge to other countries and really help reforest lots of areas around the globe that can support these types of diverse forests, to help draw the carbon out of the atmosphere, to really help us meet some of these environmental goals that are quite lofty, but so important for the survival of our planet and our species, I think. So, I really appreciate your efforts and it's really great to hear that you're spreading that knowledge throughout the world.
Greg Powell:
Yes. Thank you. We've always maintained the philosophy of sort of open source in terms of our findings and our model. Again, we're looking at the big picture here of removing over a billion metric tons of excess CO2 from the atmosphere. So, we're certainly not going to be able to do that on our own. So, we want to share what we think is a improvement to anybody who's interested.
Lydia Morrison:
It's a daunting task, and we appreciate your efforts.
Greg Powell:
Thank you.
Lydia Morrison:
And I hope to speak to you again, sometime in the future and hear how the reforestation movement has spread across the world and to hear how the flora and fauna are thriving in the forest that you've planted for New England Biolabs.
Greg Powell:
Yes. Thank you. Anytime, I'd be happy to speak with you again.
Lydia Morrison:
Thanks so much for making time in your schedule today, Greg. We'll talk soon.
Greg Powell:
All right. Thanks a lot, Lydia. Take care.
Lydia Morrison:
Thank you for joining me today. If you'd like to learn more about Reforest The Tropics, or if you'd like to sponsor a reforestation project of your own, please check out reforestthetropics.org. Hope you'll join us for our next episode, when we begin a series focused on infectious disease research, diagnostics, detection, and surveillance.
