Peter Diamandis’ Take on Restoring Biodiversity – Reforestation, Restoration and Reinvention

Peter Diamandis of X-Prize and Singularity University fame, has sent this email blast to his readers describing the current environmental challenges the planet faces because of human interference. It appears incumbent that we fix what we continue to break and Peter has some good ideas on just how to do that. I’ve also done a little of my own research to add to this conversation. Let me know what you think.

The combination of climate change, deforestation, pollution, overfishing, and more has produced a biodiversity crisis. On a bad day, 200 species go extinct. If we project current rates of decline, by century’s end, 50% of all large mammals and marine life will have disappeared. By 2050, 90% of coral reefs, home to 25% of the world’s biodiversity may also have vanished.

But all is not lost yet, as some of today’s best minds work tirelessly to halt and (in some cases) reverse these trends. Five key developments are helping to turn the tide.

Drone Reforestation

On land, forests are biodiversity hotspots, which is also why deforestation is one the largest drivers of extinction. And the scale of destruction is vast. Every year, we lose 18 million acres (7.3 million hectares) of forest, an area the size of Panama. Since trees are a major carbon sink, deforestation also accounts for 15% of total annual greenhouse gas emissions.

So how do we combat industrial-scale deforestation? With industrial-scale reforestation.

Enter Dendra Systems (formerly known as BioCarbon Engineering), a British company founded by ex-NASA employees that has developed AI-guided tree-planting drones. These drones first map an area to identify prime planting locations, then fire seed pods tucked inside of biodegradable missiles into the ground. The pods contain a custom-designed gelatinous growth medium that first acts as a shock absorber to cushion the landing, and then second, provides a nutrient-dispenser to speed plant growth. A single pilot can fly six drones at once, planting a staggering 100,000 trees daily. A global army of ten thousand drones, which is what Dendra Systems intends to build, could replant a billion trees annually.

Reef Restoration

Coral reefs are equivalent to the forests of the ocean. If we want to restore ocean health, we, therefore, have to fix them.

There are around a half-dozen coral-regrowth technologies under development, but Dr. David Vaughan, a marine biologist at the Mote’s Elizabeth Moore International Center for Coral Reef Research & Restoration, is pioneering some of the most exciting work. Borrowing tissue engineering techniques, Vaughan has figured out how to regrow 100 years’ worth of coral in under two years. And while normal corals only spawn once they reach maturity which can take 25 to 100 years, Vaughan’s corals reproduce at age two, giving us, for the first time, a way to radically replenish our reefs.

Aquaculture Reinvention

Overfishing is one of the severe drivers of ocean wildlife decline. Right now, one-third of all global fisheries are stretched beyond their limits. Better fishery management is critical. But why manage something in the wild when you can grow fish through tissue engineering? This is the same engineering technique that is allowing us to produce steak from stem cells. Instead of beef or poultry, we can grow mahi-mahi and bluefin tuna. At least six different companies are pursuing this goal with plans to produce everything from cultured salmon to lab-grown shrimp. One of these is Avant Meats whose shrimp recently debuted in Hong Kong restaurants.

Agricultural Reinvention

Plants and animals need room to roam, enormous stretches of pristine, uninterrupted habitat, both terrestrial and aquatic. Right now 15% of the Earth’s surface consists of protected wildlands. To stave off what’s now known as the Sixth Great Extinction, Harvard’s E. O. Wilson and other experts believe we need equal to half of our planet to reverse what is happening. Where do we find that land?

In a nutshell, by coupling reforestation and restoration with the reinvention of agriculture we can go a long way to achieving that goal. Today 37% of our global landmass and 75% of its freshwater resources are devoted to farming. Of this 11% is devoted to growing crops with the balance for livestock for meat and dairy.

But farmers are abandoning land in record numbers. They are doing this because of farming innovations such as cultured meat, vertical farming, genetically engineered crops, and more. This means less land needed to yield far more. Giving that surplus land back to nature seems like a very simple idea whose time has come.

Closed-Loop Economies

Among the top-five threats is pollution. A 2017 study conducted by the medical journal The Lancet estimated pollution was killing 9 million people and costing almost $5 trillion USD annually.

The impact on nature may be even worse. Greenhouse gas pollution is the biggest danger, but add to this the chemicals we dump in our rivers, the plastic in our ocean, and particulates in the air, and we can truly say we are choking the life out of the planet. So what can be done? Shifting from a fossil-fuel-based economy to one powered by renewables will help, but more is needed.

Arguably the biggest bat is zero-to-zero manufacturing. This is a process that allows companies to completely remove waste throughout production and distribution processes. Nothing ends up in a landfill. A growing list of companies includes heavy-hitters like General Motors, Toyota, Google, Microsoft, and Procter & Gamble. Not only is this good for the environment, but it’s also proving to be good for the bottom line with General Motors reporting it has saved $1 billion in the last few years with its 152 zero-waste facilities.

Interconnected Problems Call for Interconnected Solutions

Whether talking about biodiversity loss, extreme weather events, or water scarcity, these are not siloed problems. The web of life is not simply a metaphor. Everything impacts everything.

The solutions described above all solve multiple problems at once. But we must be all in and right now.

Stanford researchers give us three generations to halt species die-off before ecosystem services shut down in earnest. Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that we have roughly a decade to halt global warming at 1.5 degrees.

Yet we already have the technology required to meet these challenges, and thanks to convergences, it will only continue to improve. Our innovations may have caught up with our problems. Now, all we need is willpower and collective action.

If we’re going to make the shift to sustainable alternatives at the speed required, then we the people are both the obstacle and the opportunity.