Capable of reaching inaccessible areas, the high-tech drones, which hover just a few metres above the ground, scattered 75,000 seeds across the hills around Bodmin. Weighing 110kg, the drones can carry 58kg of seed and managed to seed 11 hectares of land in eight hours. The scattered tree seeds are native to rainforests, including pedunculate oak, alder, wild cherry, downy birch and hazel.
Working with the South West Rainforest Alliance, the Woodland Trust hopes the new seeding technique will help triple the area of temperate rainforest in Devon and Cornwall from 8% to 24% of land area by 2050.
The seeding has included developing control areas across sites to test the difference between drone seeding and natural regeneration of rainforests. The Woodland Trust aims to return to all the trial sites at intervals over the next three years, to assess the success rate of seed germination and how the planted trees are developing.
Sam Manning, project officer for South West rainforests at the Woodland Trust, said: “Rainforest once covered 75% of Devon and Cornwall but we have lost 90% of it. These are among the most threatened ecosystems on Earth. They are biodiversity hotspots, home to over 2,000 species of lichen. Sadly, rainforests cover just 1% of the Earth’s land surface, and we are one of only a small handful of rainforest nations left on Earth.
“Restoring and expanding our temperate rainforests are vital to solving the climate and biodiversity crises. A key part of that is developing innovative methods of woodland creation which are faster, cheaper and reach inaccessible sites unsafe for human tree planters, or places where soils are too thin for planting with spades.
“Drones are potentially much faster and cheaper at dispersing seeds than volunteers. The other aspect is safety and accessibility. Many potential woodland creation sites are either too steep, unsafe or remote for people to plant or scatter seeds. Drones can help solve these issues by removing the safety and accessibility limitations of humans.”
