COMPANY PROJECTS -
GO CARBON NEUTRAL
WHY HEALTHY PRODUCTIVE FORESTS
Globally, about 25 percent of the total land area has been degraded, resulting in soil stored carbon and nitrous oxide release into the atmosphere, making land degradation one of the biggest contributors to climate change. Simultaneously biodiversity, the variety of all living things on our planet, continues to decline at an alarming rate. Scientists have warned that one in every eight species on earth is threatened with extinction.
Monoculture farming practices, forest fires, overgrazing and deforestation result in landscape degradation and decrease in biodiversity. Governments, farmers and landowners lack knowledge on variants to monoculture farming and forestry solutions. Current alternatives to monoculture practices are challenged by scalability and financial viability. To address this challenge the Green Intelligence has developed an environmentally and financially healthy forest methodology that uses a modular scalable model to systematically restore degraded and monocultural landscapes. The Green Intelligence focusses on:
BIODIVERSITY
Recovery and increased resilience of landscapes by implementing a mix of specifically selected shrubs & trees
SUSTAINABLE
FOREST
Create incentives for local communities to preserve and protect the forest given its productive/economic viability
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SCALABILITY
By applying a systematic scalable grid methodology for improved forest management and monitoring
LOCAL COMMUNITY
Involvement creates more local green jobs and generate long term income
HOW HEALTHY PRODUCTIVE FORESTS
Our scalable healthy productive forest provides a solution to create more biodiversity in monoculture (tree) landscapes, restore degraded landscapes and help in curbing deforestation of natural forests. With the forest, we absorb more C02, revive productivity, improve the air and water quality, improve soil health creating a (climate) resilient landscape whilst producing sustainable forest products like timber and food.
CANOPY LAYER
SHRUBS LAYER
SUB-TREE LAYER
VERTICAL LAYER
HERBS LAYER
HORIZONTAL LAYER
GROUND LAYER
X M
X M
We combine various agroforestry and forestry methodologies like the Miyawaki method, which is a technique that mimics natural forest formation, permaculture and food forest systems to develop a multiple layered scalable stand-alone forest that has its own ecosystem. We use a city planning method to map and structure our landscapes for easy accessibility ¹, scalability ² and increase in biodiversity by implementing a high diversity ³ of species.
1. ACCESSIBILITY
A grid system provides a clear scalable framework to build a larger forest. This architectural planning approach, provides a systematic way to plant, register and maintain the forest. This framework helps to optimize monitoring of growth, as well as creates more efficiency in harvesting for making the forest economically profitable and sustainable.
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2. SCALABILITY
The Modular forest approach comprises of single modules (refers to a small forest) that are combined together into a full-size forest. By scaling the modular forest with different forest typologies larger plots of degraded land can be restored.
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3. DIVERSITY
Combination of a variety of plant and tree species enhance forest diversity. This diversity of species has several advantages over a monoculture landscape helping to increase biodiversity and soil conditions. With the increased biodiversity the forest becomes more resilient to diseases, invasive species, forest fires, and changing weather conditions. The diversity of species averts the concentration of the harvest period resulting in lower labor costs for the landowner.
4th CANOPY LAYER
3rd SUB-TREE LAYER
2nd SHRUBS LAYER
1st HERBS LAYER
MULTI LAYERED - MULTIPLE SPECIES FOREST
The forests consist of multi layers for optimal land use, sun harvest and income generation. The first layer starts with herbs, and is harvest ready after 1 year. Second layer are shrubs, generating its first harvest in year 2-3. Third and fourth layers are the sub-tree and canopy layer, that generate produce in year 3-4 and year 5-7 respectively. Over time the forest will develop and the upper layers will become more prominent, a natural process in forest growth.
A mix of tree species per forest type can be found for an optimal balance between productivity, recovery of biodiversity and landscape resilience. The selection of species varies according to location and depends on different indicators like altitude, soil quality, north/south facing areas, slope amongst others.
FOREST VARIATIONS
The Green Intelligence restores landscapes by applying a scalable systematic modular approach. We have designed three module types, each with specific outputs depending on client needs. Each module comes with a smartly crafted layered forest which include Herbs, Shrubs, Sub-Tree and Canopy layers.
Food-Forest
Module
1st layer
2nd layer
3rd layer
4th layer
Meter
Meter
Meter
Meter
The layered Food-Forest module focuses on generating high-value products like nuts by taking a relatively low-density forest approach and improving soil quality.
GI GROWING TREES - MOBILE APP
GI utilizes technology, including the newly developed mobile application, to accurately register trees, plots of land and offer advisory services to farmers and landowners.
With the use of the "GI Growing Trees" mobile application trees are geo-tagged (picture with GPS coordinates) and financials rewards are provided to tree planters and caretakers. GI aims to monitor growth and survival rates and reduce long-term costs. Financial incentives are provided to farmers in Nepal to encourage tree planting and care taking. Farmers receive a financial reward for uploading a geotagged picture of a healthy tree. This reward aims to encourage farmers to plant and maintain trees, it provides additional income for farmers during the time the trees is not generating produce yet (Y1-3 after plantation). Additionally the mobile app offers advisory services on tree plantation and tree care taking. This approach aims to increase tree survival rates, direct income generation to (remote) farmers and reduces operational costs for GI while increasing impact per euro.
Step 1:Download app
Step 4: Picture
Step 2: Register
Step 5: Reward
Step 3: Plot land
Step 6: Update trees
Step 1: Download
Download APP GI Growing Trees
Farmer downloads the GI Growing Trees mobile app from the Play Store on your Android phone.
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PLATFORM
PLANTING
Plant your forest by using the Green Intelligence platform.
MONITORING
On the platform, you can register trees as well as learn how to maintain the forest. Longitudinal data collection is essential for building a robust evidence base for optimizing the growth and health of the forest.
OPTIMIZING
By sharing knowledge and data we can improve and optimize the forest to create more biodiversity for healthier, productive, and more sustainable forests for the Green Intelligence community.
* Currently the GI platform is still under development. Amongst others the GI application is used for registration and monitoring.