Our target country for tree planting in March was Argentina, we were able to raise enough funds to plant 95 trees through One Tree Planted. We were also able to donate £66 to The Ocean Cleanup Project, which they will use to continue ridding the planet’s oceans of man-made waste.
As usual, a big thank you to our customers who enable us to give back to charities such as the above, and also to those of you who voted for a country.
About Argentina
Argentina is the 8th largest country on the planet, and is home to the highest and lowest points in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The country is home to many different species of animal, such as: seals and penguins on the Patagonian Coast, jaguars, flamingos and capybaras.
Argentina is home to 18 different eco-regions including plains, deserts, tropics, artics and the tallest mountains in the Americas. It has thousands of miles of coastline, but is most known for Mesopotamia- a rainforest region in the north, Gran Chaco- a dry region with the world’s tallest volcano, and Pampas-flat plains that are home to the Parana river.
How will our donations be used?
One Tree Planted always plant a mix of diverse, native species from local nurseries. This project is working to replenish local forests, so the native species grown in the nurseries include Tabaquillo (Polulepis australis), Coihue (Nothofagus dombeyi), Ciprés de la cordillera (Austrocedrus chilensis), Scutia buxifolia (Coronillo or Reissek), Eugenia cisplatensis (Red Guava), Aspidosperma quebracho-blanco (White Quebracho).
Our Argentina project will employ locals at nurseries in the area to generate income for their community and planting knowledge for generations to come. Collaboration with locals is very important since they know the area, the climate, the seasons, and the animals.
Reforestation will improve the quality of life for the local population living in the harsh mountainous conditions. After decades of cattle raising in the area, one of the native trees thrives without allowing other species to settle. With this project, we will regenerate the forest as it was before human intervention and will help recover from wildfires and promote climate stability.
The Ocean Cleanup
In March, The Ocean Cleanup celebrated the official inauguration of Interceptor 019 in Bangkok, Thailand. This is the first step in a multi-year project to clean the Chao Phraya – One of the world’s busiest working rivers. This is in the attemp to stop thousands of tons of litter from flowing into the gulf of Thailand each year.
LA County, USA is nearing the end of its second rainy season, where the Interceptor 007 is deployed. This was one of the largest offloads of the interceptor. bringing its total catch to 103,871kg of plastic to this date.
We also saw the first extraction of System 03 this year: 7029kg of plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. To understand what we need to do to scale up and clean the entire Pacific Garbage Patch watch the short video below taken from The Ocean Cleanup podcast.
