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posted by takyon on Monday May 07 2018, @10:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the dronegrove dept.

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Since 1978, one million hectares of mangroves have been cut down in Myanmar. In the Ayerwaddy Delta in the south, mangrove forests have been significantly depleted - often cut down to make way for shrimp and rice farming, as well as charcoal production and collecting palm oil. Worldwide, 35 percent of the world's mangroves are now lost.

[...] Mangroves play a vital role in the fight against climate change and extreme weather events such as cyclones. They help mitigate carbon emissions, as well as protect vulnerable coastal communities from extreme weather, while strengthening seafood stocks up to 50 percent. While Meung and many locals have tried taking matters into their own hands, planting over 400,000 seedlings by hand to try and repopulate the mangrove population, the activity has taken three years and there is a lot more yet to be done before another cyclone hits.

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/earthrise/2018/04/cyclone-shield-breathing-life-myanmar-mangroves-180430100914882.html

takyon: A team from BioCarbon Engineering is helping to plant new mangrove trees using drones:

Bremley Lyngdoh, founder and CEO of Worldview Impact and a board member of Worldview International, said a single pilot can use the drones, courtesy of BioCarbon Engineering, to plant about 100,000 seeds per day. The drones can fire one seedpod into the soil every minute and fly for approximately half an hour at a time.


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  • (Score: 2) by qzm on Monday May 07 2018, @10:41PM (7 children)

    by qzm (3260) on Monday May 07 2018, @10:41PM (#676817)

    And a cropduster filled with seeds could spread half a ton of seeds in a few minutes scattered down a length of coastal estuary..
    (and yes, seeding by cropdister is not at all uncommon..)
    And is even done (when I was looking for a link to add.)
    http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2015/08/aerial_mangrove_seeding_louisi.html [nola.com]

    Oh, sorry, I forgot, its a 'drone' so that makes it new, in some way.
    Roll on the funding!

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  • (Score: 1, Troll) by bob_super on Monday May 07 2018, @10:54PM (6 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Monday May 07 2018, @10:54PM (#676821)

    Want funding?
    Put the seeds inside machine-gun cartridges, and invite the military to go at the mangrove Vietnam-style. There's always manpower and funding to shoot stuff, in the name of readiness.

    Bonus points if the Myanmar military forgets to revert back to regular cartridges before their next Rohinga raid.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @11:03PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @11:03PM (#676823)

      Mangrove seedlings are softshelled pre-sprouted plants directly off the trees. While they can survive dropping a few feet into the water and maybe floating to a nearby shoreline, they are not hardshelled seeds built to withstand the abuses of airdrops or projectile fire.

      Having said that, drones that were programmed to visually analyze the coast looking for clear areas that met the criteria, then lowering themselves to drop the mangrove seedlings from only a few feet up might work acceptably. And automated planting of seeds to help improve on human productivity is certainly an option, assume of course the locals can afford it, or someone like you is willing to help crowdfund the equipment and training for them. If not then hand planting of the seeds is as good as they will get, and 400k seedlings is a laudable quantity.

      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday May 07 2018, @11:25PM

        by bob_super (1357) on Monday May 07 2018, @11:25PM (#676825)

        Just because you are probably right, doesn't give you the right to try and squash my dreams of saving the planet from the gunnery station of an AC-130 !

        And, really, if they were convinced that there was a tactical advantage to it, the US military would funnel enough resources to seed just about any plant from the barrel of a gun. We're talking about the people who make GPS-guided gliders you literally shoot from a cannon, after all.

      • (Score: 2) by qzm on Tuesday May 08 2018, @09:09AM

        by qzm (3260) on Tuesday May 08 2018, @09:09AM (#676958)

        Oh ffs.

        No.
        Mangrove seeds regularly survive months and years of abuse by the elements before sprouting.
        They are not delicate snowflakes.
        With their mass, falling in to soft mud, it must likely just gives them a better chance of rooting without the tides washing them away.

        Firing down a barrel may be a step too far.
        But this really is bs. It's been done. Airdrops work and would be much much cheaper.

        This is just another 'gee whiz what can I do with my expensive drone toy'

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @11:34PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @11:34PM (#676830)

      I love the idea of plants sprouting from the corpses of people dumb enough to start a genocide when they were outnumbered. (muslims gonna muslim) Adding pork would be better though, since it sends them directly to Hell.

      The US military already has a development program for bullets that sprout plants. It's some sort of "green ammo" program at DARPA, created due to concern about toxic metal at places where the military practices live fire. Plants that take toxic metals from the soil are preferred.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 08 2018, @05:04PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 08 2018, @05:04PM (#677092)

        Umm, don't you have that backwards? Buddhists gonna not-buddhist?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 08 2018, @08:06PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 08 2018, @08:06PM (#677164)

          Muslims (the Rohingya) from Bangladesh illegally entered and settled in a neighboring Buddhist country called Myanmar or Burma. They then decided to start killing infidels, as muslims are want to do. Buddhists will fight back if you piss them off enough, which takes some doing. Killing the Rohingya qualifies as self-defense; they started it.