To cut down on emissions, UH students and volunteers plant 1,000 trees in a single day

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Students from the University of Hawaii alongside dozens of other volunteers took on a new goal to offset carbon emissions.

Teams participated in the Carbon Neutrality Challenge, a joint project of UH Manoa and other organizations, which aims to test the feasibility of restoring local ecosystems to while reducing the state’s carbon emissions.

On Saturday, teams went to the Ala Mahamoe Cultural Garden and Forest near Tripler Hospital and joined together in a friendly competition to see who could plant the most trees in one day. The goal for total trees planted in a single day was 1,000.

“Despite increasingly obvious consequences of deadly heatwaves, hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires, and other climatic changes, greenhouse gas emissions remain largely unabated. While considerable attention has been given to improvements in energy efficiency and renewable energy sources as a way to reduce emissions, much less serious attention has been given to improving the state of natural ecosystems as sinks of such emissions,” the university said in a news release.

Participants and organizers hoped to send a message that it’s possible to help the environment drastically by restoring forests and planting trees.

“The solution to climate change is staring at us. It is as simple as planting sufficient trees to offset one’s emissions,” said Camilo Mora, associate professor of geography in UH Manoa’s College of Social Sciences and lead investigator in the project.

“Land to plant trees is certainly not a bottle neck at the moment. Over 80 percent of the natural land cover in the state has been transformed or severely degraded, and both state and land owners are eager to change that,” Myles Ritchie of The Outdoor Circle added.

Click here for more details about Saturday’s event.

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