2 Centre for Mine Site Restoration, School of
Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, WA 6102,
Australia
*Author for correspondence. E-mail: hongtao.zhong@uwa.edu.au
At 7:30 in the morning, Ms Yuchun, one of over 800 million urban Chinese
is woken by her alarm clock to harvest ‘green energy’ before her friends
‘steal’ it, because she aims to accumulate enough ‘green energy’ to grow
a tree. But, this is no ordinary tree. In fact, there are over 500
million e-trees being cultivated every day in China using Ant Forest, a
mini-app developed by Ant Financial, which affiliated with e-commerce
giant Alibaba.
By harnessing people’s attachment to smart devices, e-commerce and the
wide connectivity of the net, the Alibaba empire has done something
every restoration ecologist dreams about - engage everyday people in
replanting degraded landscapes but on a vast scale.
First launched in August 2016, Alibaba customers voluntarily sign up a
personal carbon saving account that connects to your daily routine. You
then earn ‘green energy’ via all sorts of low-carbon footprint
activities, for example walking, jogging, cycling, taking public
transport instead of self-driving, and paying utility bills or
purchasing tickets online. Once your ‘green energy’ accumulates to a
sufficient amount, you claim your virtual e-tree that converts into a
real tree planted in degraded and desertified reforestation sites in
northwest China (See Fig. 1).
Depending upon how many kilos of ‘green energy’ you have accumulated you
earn the rights to plant a larger species native shrub or tree. For
example, key desert species Caragana korshinskii (Fabaceae),Haloxylon ammodendron (Amaranthaceae), Hippophae
rhamnoides (Elaeagnaceae), Hedysarum scoparium (Fabaceae),Salix cheilophila (Salicaceae), and Populus euphratica(Salicaceae) represent a palette of biologically and culturally
important species on offer through Ant Forest. Importantly many plant
species that Ant Forest select are local species that build broader
biodiversity benefits while yielding economic returns to the local
communities.
By the end of 2019, over 500 million users (about half of all on-line
Alibaba customers using the Alipay system of payment) have participated
in the program, with an impressive 122 million trees planted over more
than 112,000 ha of degraded and desertified land areas. At the same
time, around 400,000 job opportunities were created through this
e-greening economy.
Ant Forest, is now the world’s largest online personal carbon account
database and has delivered more greening capacity over a larger area
than any other single private company initiative. Ant Forest shares
similarities to public welfare projects. However the return to Ant
Financial is substantial with higher customer loyalty and visibility on
customer habits.
This innovative bottom-up green movement has effectively mobilized more
people in environmental restoration than the collective capabilities of
any other global regreening programs.
At the same time, this has revolutionised the way individual citizens
contribute to national environmental conservation and build green public
welfare. This is a showcase of how innovation via internet technology
combined with digital finance can contribute to solving environmental
issues.
A recent study found that China alone contributed 25% of the net
increase in global re-greening (2000-2017) (Chen et al. 2019).
There is no doubt this is a striking achievement attributable to
ambitious national conservation programs by the Chinese government in
order to mitigate and prevent flooding and soil erosion. Two widely
known programs, China’s Great Green Wall (also called Three-North
Shelter Forest Program) initiated in 1978, and Grain-for-Green Project
(returning agricultural land to forest or pasture) initiated in 1999
have achieved remarkable outcomes, though not always without unintended
and undesired consequences (Xu 2011).
But such top-down green actions implemented as policy instruments are
unlike Ant Forest. Though both are important, bottom-up strategies like
Ant Forest mobilize and engage people unlike any other conservation
programs. By attracting people through a basic instinct to shop and then
building in a sense of ‘competition’ for the biggest and best outcome
means anyone, anywhere, from urban jungles to rural communities can play
an equal share in global regreening.
And, more importantly, every user of Ant Forest gets the sense of
participation and self-fulfilment when a tree or trees are physically
planted because of his or her low carbon footprint daily life. This is
done by engaging everyday people in a voluntary way, other than through
regulatory processes. Such an approach will achieve greater permanency
from the community as has been demonstrated with century-old volunteer
conservation organisations like the National Audubon Society and the
Royal Horticultural Society.
However, critiques of Ant Forest believe that this is an invasion of
privacy through accessing personal information. But, such a concern also
applies each time you switch on your smart device or connect to an
internet search engine or engage in social media. With appropriate
controls, there is no reason why the Ant Forest model should not extend
to the global giants of the internet such as Google and Facebook, to
build similar bottom-up strategies to promote global to local nature
conservation. In fact, GCash Forest which is the Ant Forest equivalent
in the Philippines, initiated by GCash (also a mobile payment platform)
and launched in June 2019, already has 1.3 million users participating
in their e-greening movement.
The next step in such e-greening programs is to protect the integrity
and resilience of nature being restored though the inclusion of science
proven approaches that use internationally accepted standards. The
Global Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration (see The
Society for Ecological Restoration SER.org) provides just such a
mechanism to assess and guide ethical and ecological sound global
regreening initiatives.
Tree planting when linked to ecological restoration of landscapes
provides greater carbon capture capability, more long-term ecological
resilience and improved habitat opportunities for animals. Ensuring that
afforestation of this type meets international standards for
ecologically responsible land management (Gann et al. 2019) is
paramount to prevent the mistakes of past green initiatives.
Afforestation devoid of the principles of ecological restoration as
outlined in (Gann et al. 2019) will struggle to achieve the
desired social, environmental and economic (carbon, hydrological)
benefits of global restoration initiatives. By building links to
recognised and established principles founded on solid science provides
the insurance factor for activities such as Ant Forest and the many
other e-greening initiatives to follow, do deliver the sustainable
biodiversity values so keenly sought by global citizenry.
Getting restoration right and at the scale needed requires innovation to
mobilise communities and ingrain ownership of solutions to global
degradation (Menz et al. 2013). If we are to achieve the laudable
goals of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030, then
e-greening initiatives could provide the step change needed to reach the
350 million hectare restoration goal to deliver USD 9 trillion in
ecosystem services and lock up 13-26 gigatons of carbon dioxide.
E-greening seamlessly connects communities wide and far at a speed that
is just a click away and promises to match the digital footprint of the
planet with an ecological one.
References
Chen, C., Park, T., Wang, X., Piao, S., Xu, B., Chaturvedi, R.K.et al. (2019). China and India lead in greening of the world
through land-use management. Nat. Sustain., 2, 122-129.
Gann, G.D., McDonald, T., Walder, B., Aronson, J., Nelson, C.R., Jonson,
J. et al. (2019). International principles and standards for the
practice of ecological restoration. Second edition. Restor.
Ecol., 27, S1-S46.
Menz, M.H., Dixon, K., Hobbs, M.R.J. (2013). Hurdles and Opportunities
for Landscape-Scale Restoration. Science, 339, 526-527.
Xu, J. (2011). China’s new forests aren’t as green as they seem.Nature, 477, 371.