In Apple’s most recent environmental initiative, the company will once again join the Conservation International to help restore and preserve pastures and forests in Kenya (Africa), as reported by Fast Company.
You may be asking yourself, «Why is Apple donating to restore pastures?» In addition to the most obvious answer, related to the company’s footprint in environmental initiatives, there is, however, a specific reason: pastures have the potential to capture large amounts of carbon dioxide (not like forests, of course). Over time, however, they were degraded by human action, causing problems for the region’s fauna, especially for elephants.
More precisely, one hectare of pasture can retain four tons of carbon dioxide; therefore, this type of restoration can yield enormous climatic benefits, as inferred by Nikola Alexandre, a member of Conservation International:
If you look across Africa, there are more than 900 million hectares of degraded land – this is an area larger than the whole of Brazil! Restoring such areas using new methods that we have identified – which specifically aim to reduce costs and have direct benefits for wildlife and people – could, in an ideal scenario, result in the annual capture of 3.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide carbon. This is roughly equivalent to the European Union’s annual emissions.
For Apple, the initiative is the company’s latest project in a series of investments aimed at helping conservation organizations “use their own nature to combat climate change”, as advocated by the VP of Apple’s environmental, political and social initiatives , Lisa Jackson:
Facing the global climate challenge requires everyone to act with fierce urgency. At Apple, we are bringing the same focus as we are to create innovative products to create environmental solutions.
The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, also praised the restoration project and recalled the serious fact about climate change:
Climate change impacts all of us —every living thing on Earth. We’re working with @ConservationOrg to restore grasslands and forests in Kenya. These habitats reduce carbon, protecting the livelihoods of the Maasai people and local elephant populations.? https://t.co/bwW61vqxHV
– Tim Cook (@tim_cook) September 25, 2019
Climate change affects all of us – all living beings on Earth. We are working with @ConservationOrg to restore pastures and forests in Kenya. These habitats reduce carbon, protecting the livelihoods of the Maasai people and the local elephant population. ?
As we said, this is not Apple’s first endeavor in a conservation project in partnership with Conservation International; last April, both institutions managed to protect an area of ​​more than 11,000 hectares of mangroves in Colombia.
via 9to5Mac
