P08

@ Green XTRA | MAY-JUNE , 2023

had a dream – to plant one million trees . That was my target when I started Eco Warriors Malaysia in 2008 . I believed it could be done through people mobilisation , motivation and without financial resources .

Things started very well .

When I founded Eco Warriors Malaysia as a Facebook group , we did not have a proper office or a bank account . I believe that this is not required . If people are committed , then we can make it happen . Call me a purist . Maybe that was right then . My belief in the good of humanity was unshakeable .

The project was even more exciting because it was a drained and burned peat land . When visiting it , I realised the haze problem was not mainly from slash-and-burn but from peat soil that had accumulated concentrated carbon over many years . That had been exposed to oxidisation and burning because humans have artificially lowered the water table . Only then will it burn during dry periods and release loads of haze and CO2 due to the smouldering fires in the soil .

It was not my first venture into forestry or wood . It started with me as a teenager being reluctant to follow my dad to the forest to chop down trees for firewood . But what can you do when your dad requests it , and without it , you might freeze in the winter ?

On top of that , when looking at the cooperative model of forestry carefully - the local village community owned it - it was done sustainably . The birch wood that was harvested did regrow into a full-blown forest again within 30 years without the need to replant .

The beech trees , part of the forests that the community cooperative owned , were only harvested partially in a low-impact way which meant there was always forest cover and biodiversity .

Then around 2004 , I purchased carbon life credit from Plant A Tree Today ( PATT ) Foundation . You need about 500 trees that grow for you and sequester enough carbon each year to make your life climate neutral . I loved it so much that I kept sponsoring more trees and later got an award from them as their top individual tree planter with more than 5,000 trees .

UNDERESTIMATING TEAK

In 2005 , I invested in four hectares of biodiverse reforestation projects with teak and other high-value and local native species . The idea was to do good with your money and get decent returns . I underestimated that those trees take a long time , and 18 years later , the returns still have not yet materialised .

The Malaysian Eco Warrior project stopped at about 100,000 trees , far short of one million . And if not for the fantastic support of the Malaysian Sai Baba organisation , we might have only been able to pull off 20,000 trees . But still , it was fun , and many people told me it brought them closer to nature .

What happened to the trees ? Some failed , some burned , and some survived , but we could not regrow at at a large scale , a forest . The project was fortunately continued by GEC , which was able to secure funds from the EU , and they were able to set up a unique peat forest centre .

We Eco Warriors ran out of steam . My idea to make this happen without resources did lead to an enthusiastic and viral start and a resource constraint implosion .

Fast forward to today , I was taken aback when I asked Gain Green Chief Executive Officer EL Law how many trees he had planted already . “ One million plus ,” said the innovative mastermind behind Gain Green and the planting of Revotropix Paulownia trees in Malaysia . “ And our target for the next 3-4 years is five million ”.

Whoa … one million trees . That was my target . How did EL Law get there was my question . Thinking about it and studying his model , the following seems to be the recipe for success :

• Scientific and quantified approach .

• Fast-growing species with fast ROI .

• Holistic concept for the use of all biomass .

• Carbon sequestration and increasing focus on biodiversity .

LAND IS NOT AN ISSUE

The fast ROI and efficient use of all the biomass is critical to get investors in that will help scale up . The land is not a problem in Malaysia as there are a lot of palm oil and rubber plantations that have ceased to be productive .

I believe nature-based solutions are the way to achieve the Paris Agreement goals . But nature is slow . We need such fast-growing species like Paulownia or even bamboo , which is a grass species . We must shift from carbon problems like Portland cement and steel to carbon sinks , even in the building sector .

But without such fast-growing species , we cannot scale fast enough . And we must bring back the biodiversity to land that has suffered before . It will be a challenge that we still need to put more work into .

I hope to preserve the remaining oldgrowth rain forests with sustainable forest management and get most of our carbon sink building materials from such fastgrowing sustainable plantations . But good forest management might also mean that we need to harvest some trees here and there to protect the whole forest . Revenue is important . Then people will appreciate and preserve .

Let ’ s hope we can soon get substantial carbon and biodiversity credits revenue . Then such visions will flourish , and I can dream that my children ’ s children will still have a balanced planet at their side . •

Matthias Gelber ( aka the Green Man ) is on a mission to start a green revolution in Malaysia