The cases of wildfires have exceedingly grown that have burned down thousands of hectares of forest lands, making it a great concern as restoration of forests is not as easy as it sounds. This year, nearly 47,201 cases of wildfire burned around 6,480,861 acres of land across the United States. In order to better the situation, Seattle-based company DroneSeed offers to replant and restore forestry using drones.
As the name suggests, DroneSeed works on a drone system that explicitly targets the most efficient way to replant forests following a forest fire. The technology is also efficient at dropping the seed pods in a targeted way instead of sprinkling it anywhere that optimizes the chance of growth success. The placement of seed vessels is achieved through the use of advanced laser mapping, which classifies the nutritious soil areas to plant in.
Image: DroneSeed
Jay Zaveri, a partner at Social Capital mentions;
We’ve supported DroneSeed from the very beginning given its promise to terraform our planet for good. Since then, DroneSeed has scaled its effort to reforest land, found a profitable model through carbon markets and transformed the experience of forest development for landowners.
The drone can cover around 50 acres of area for planation per day. The creation can efficiently work as soon as 30 days after a fire. The company is known to save 30 to 40 percent of replanting cost.
It is the only company approved by the Federal Aviation Administration to set-up heavy-lift drones to reforest after wildfires. Recently, the company raised capital from investors to procure Silvaseed, an established forestry company that would improve seedling production for the firm.
Climate Change is one of the major factors responsible for wildfires and this initiative is certainly one of the innovative ways to redeem burned forests.
Image: DroneSeed
Image: DroneSeed
Image: DroneSeed
Via: Inhabitat