Greening: One more tree!

The loss of biological diversity (in short: biodiversity) is one of the world's most urgent environmental problems. The Earth's species are dying out at an alarming rate, up to 1000 times faster than their natural rate of extinction.

By carefully examining fossil records and ecosystem destruction, some scientists estimate that as many as 137 species disappear from the Earth each day, which adds up to an astounding 50,000 species disappearing every year. (Source: UNEP Global Biodiversity Assessment).

Besides the moral argument that the extinction of these species provides a loss for this world, it may ultimately also affect the living environment of mankind by disturbance of the ecological processes involved in the maintenance of clean air, fresh water, etc.

Australia is among the world' s most severely affected countries. Recent UN figures show Australia to be one of the top 10 land-clearing countries - overtaking the deforestation rates of Bolivia and the Congo. Since European settlement, almost 75% of native vegetation has been removed or modified for agricultural purposes and urban development. According to the report, Australian Land Clearing: A Global Perspective, Australia's annual land clearing rate rose nearly 7 per cent from 2000 to 2001. It is estimated that Australia cleared 564,800 hectares of bushland and native vegetation during 2000, making it the sixth worst land-clearing rate on earth.

Although a large amount of Australian organizations are involved in the protection of the biodiversity, the sheer size of the country, and the relatively severe impacts from the rapid settlements after around 1800 mean that an enormous effort is required to protect the remaining biodiversity - for which our innovative approach towards biodiversity protection can provide a valuable contribution.

In addition, Australia provides us with a well developed legal framework in which we can guarantee you the legal ownership of your GreenPoint. If our approach in Australia works, we will expand our projects to other countries with less indigenous structure to tackle loss of biodiversity.

The State of Queensland, in which the Brigalow Zone is located, has the highest rate of vegetation destruction in Australia. During 2000 alone, an estimated 425,000 hectares was cleared in the State, of which 59% in the Brigalow zone. Currently, The Brigalow ecological community has declined to approximately 10% of its former area (source: Brigalow regrowth and the environment protection and biodiversity conservation act 1999). As only 2% of the Zone is protected in National parks, we can say that the Brigalow zone is one of the ecosystems most affected by land clearing in Australia.

The Tara site is divided into 60 areas of 2000 GreenPoints each. One by one, we will open up the sections for sale. Once we have sold about 85% of an area, we will start the greening process of that particular section.

With greening we mean returning of the land to it's natural vegetation, based on natural processes but with specific, well-targeted actions to speed up the return of natural vegetation. When enough GreenPoints of the first area have been sold, we will develop a detailed Vegetation Management Plan for this section. This plan will be based upon advice from the Australian Botanical Society, as well as the relevant Australian native vegetation management guidelines (which will be published on the Internet). Regarding the management of the area, we will work together with local nurseries (and rangers). It is tentatively envisaged that our actions will include:

• The planting of trees that are naturally dominant in the area: Brigalow (Acacia harpophylla), Cypress pines (Callitris glaucophylla), and Belah (Casuarina cristata). We will do this in densities slightly below the natural tree spacing so that the other trees can return by natural processes;
  
  
• Combatting, as much as possible, the invasion of exotic weeds and limiting fires in the first years to protect the young trees (which will be able to resist fires after a couple of years); and
  
  
• Protection of wildlife.

The land will be managed for the sole purpose of nature conservation, and harvest of timber of other products is not foreseen.

Some of our future plans are:

• To place a WebCam on the land, so you can see the progress yourself
• To make parts of the land available for research activities concerned with conservation
• To expand our activities in other countries
• To expand the number and scale of our activities.

If you would like to cooperate with us, please let us know!