Inserts:

00:03 Report / Tim Schauenberg
00:32 Gregory Maitre / Executive Director MORFO Brasil
02:21 Gregory Maitre / Executive Director MORFO Brasil

Script:

Eng: 

A small test field not far from the climate conference in Belém, Brazil.  
This is what it looked like a few months ago: Rock-hard soil, compacted by livestock farming.  
The area was replanted using a drone in just a few minutes.  
Today it looks like this, grass, bushes, small trees - the area is thriving.  
High-tech reforestation: This is how start-up Morfo plans to regenerate huge areas, first in Amazon  

+++  SOT Gregory Maitre / Executive Director MORFO Brasil +++
One drone can spread around 50 hectares a day. Two workers with one drone can plant about 1000 hectar of land per month. Thats a huge gap if you compare it to traditional way of doing restauration. +++ 

Usually, workers can seed up to a hectare per day, says Gegory Maitre. 

The drones can be used to reforest areas that are far away and difficult to access. 

Small balls containing only native seeds, mixed with nutrients and moisture, are scattered so that as many as possible can germinate and rebuild the forest ecosystem. 

Morfo isn’t the only company with this approach. Globally, dozens of firms/businesses are betting on drone technology for reforestation. 

globally, dozens of firms/businesses are betting on drone technology for reforestation 

+++ SOT Gregory Maitr //  Executive Director MORFO Brasil +++
That is exactly what we do. This cover for the soil, this one for the shade and those ones are the actual durable trees. In five years it will be higher than this one, which will start to exit the system. +++ 

In 2024 alone about 1.7 million hectares of forest were lost in the Amazon. Much of it was  illegally cut down.1 

MORFO says it determines which plants are suitable for which areas with the help of drone images, soil samples and special data analyses – including artifical intelligence. 

Customers include mine operators who are subject to reforestation requirements, and cities like Rio de Janeiro. The company also provides  reforestation-based carbon credits -sold to companies and countries around the world, to enable them to offset some of their emissions. 

+++ SOT Gregory Maitre // Executive Director MORFO Brasil +++
Its really a non mature market, but also I think that everybody now understands that we have to provide reforestation and have to act, to have more forest to limit climate change. Those are financial tools that can renumerate people that build up forests.  
+++ 

Morfo just kicked-off a reforestation program of 20.000 hectares just hours away from Belèm. 
For now the company is focusing on Brazil. But they aim to reach out to new markets in 
Western Africa and South East Asia in the future. 

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