If you spend any amount of time watching the news, you realize that the trees in the world are disappearing quickly. This includes the Amazon rain forest, which is being cut down to make way for farmland and fanning the flames of global warning. According to the UN, an area the size of South Africa has been lost permanently since 1990. Another way to look at it is an area of the size of Panama being lost every year.
Add on top of that the deforestation industry that is responsible for 15% of greenhouse gas emissions and it really adds to the plant species and animals that are going extinct. David Attenborough has said that species are going extinct at the same rate as the dinosaurs when they disappeared. And we all know that it didn’t end well for the dinosaurs.
Image: Sebastião Salgado
Sometimes change isn’t about turning the tide completely, it’s about making small differences. That is what two Brazilians are trying to do. Married couple Sebastião Salgado and Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado are showing the world what is possible when individuals go up against the environmental issues we are now experiencing.
For years, the husband spent his time documenting the Rwandan genocide and when he returned to Brazil, he found that it was not the same as when he left. At one time, the tropical rain forests were standing proudly but now, the country was practically barren. This includes the disappearance of wildlife.
Image: Sebastião Salgado
“The land was as sick as I was – everything was destroyed,” Salgado told The Guardian. “Only about 0.5% of the land was covered in trees. Then my wife had a fabulous idea to replant this forest. And when we began to do that, then all the insects and birds and fish returned and, thanks to this increase of the trees I, too, was reborn – this was the most important moment.
Image: Sebastião Salgado
“There is a single being which can transform CO2 to oxygen, which is the tree. We need to replant the forest. You need forest with native trees, and you need to gather the seeds in the same region you plant them or the serpents and the termites won’t come. And if you plant forests that don’t belong, the animals don’t come there and the forest is silent.”
Image: Sebastião Salgado
The married couple decided to get busy and they have now planted over 2 million native trees over the course of two decades to rebuild the forest. Along with the growing trees, wildlife has also returned. This includes 172 bird species, 33 mammal species, 293 plant species, and 30 reptile and amphibian species.
“We need to listen to the words of the people on the land,” Salgado explained. “Nature is the earth and it is other beings and if we don’t have some kind of spiritual return to our planet, I fear that we will be compromised.”
Image: Sebastião Salgado
