This story was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful
3 min read
Welcome back to our weekly behind-the-scenes glimpse at what’s getting our team talking. Tell us what you’ve been reading at info@reasonstobecheerful.world and we just might feature it here.
Uprooted
When trees are in the path of development, they have to go. Right? Not in Japan, where arborists and horticultural experts are enlisted to lead a months-long process to carefully relocate centuries-old trees while keeping their root systems intact. As the Times of India reports in a story shared by RTBC Executive Editor Will Doig, the technique, known as nemawashi, “combines centuries of horticultural knowledge with modern engineering and reflects Japan’s long-standing respect for nature and cultural heritage.”
Will says:
Saving one very old tree at a time might have an impact that’s hard to measure — one that fosters a reverence for forests that reverberates through society.
Seeds of change
This year’s Earth Prize, the world’s largest environmental competition and “ideas incubator” for teens, went to three Indian teenagers who discovered a low-cost and low-tech way to remove microplastics from water. The surprising key, according to an announcement shared by Contributing Editor Geetanjali Krishna, is tamarind seeds — more specifically, a biodegradable magnetic tamarind powder that removes microplastics from water. Plas-Stick, as they’ve called their solution, is designed to work without electricity or complex machinery.
Geetanjali says:
Given the enormity of microplastic pollution in our rivers and oceans, I’m impressed by how simple and replicable this method seems.
What else we’re reading
The City That Conquered Traffic Has a New Weapon — shared by RTBC Founder David Byrne from Bloomberg CityLab
Staten Island gets machines with free naloxone kits to help prevent future drug overdoses — shared by Editorial Director Rebecca Worby from Healthbeat
An island in Chile covered its waters with floating solar panels. Soon, thousands of salmon had turned them into their home — shared by Executive Editor Will Doig from The Pulse by Ecoportal
In other news…
Let’s pause for a moment of beauty with this dispatch from Contributing Editor Peter Yeung:
I came across this beautiful 160-year-old magnolia tree while strolling around in Bayonne, in the southwest of France. It has been recognized as an “arbre remarquable” or remarkable tree, reminding me of my story about Sceax’s tree charter.
The post What We’re Reading: Saving One Centuries-Old Tree at a Time appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
