Anti Pollution Trees

By Liliana Usvat
Blog 307-365

Here are Some  Anti Pollution Trees 

Trembesi Tree or Samanea saman

Capable of absorbing carbon dioxide in large quantities, so highly recommended to be planted as a tree reforestation. Yet trambesi require a wide area.

Saman is a wide-canopied tree with a large symmetrical crown. It usually reaches a height of 25 m (82 ft) and a diameter of 40 m. 

The leaves fold in rainy weather and in the evening, hence the name "rain tree" and "five o'clock tree" (Pukul Lima) in Malay. Several lineages of this tree are available, e.g., with reddish pink and creamish golden colored flowers.

Dadap Red Tree 

The amazing tree that all the birds are attracted to is called a Coastal Coral Tree (Erythrina caffra).

Kafir-boom in it's home South Africa, Thong-lang in Thailand and Dadap or Dedap in Indonesia and Malaysia. It is drought tolerant which makes it well suited to Darwin's climate of wet - dry conditions.

The Dadap is a sacred tree in Bali and is considered a symbol of fertility. The tree features in Balinese ceremonies including the wedding ceremony. 

Mahogany trees 

The name mahogany was initially associated only with those islands in the West Indies under British control (French colonists used the term acajou, while in the Spanish territories it was called caoba). 

The origin of the name is uncertain, but it could be a corruption of 'm'oganwo', the name used by the Yoruba and Ibo people of West Africa to describe trees of the genus Khaya, which is closely related to Swietenia. When transported to Jamaica as slaves, they gave the same name to the similar trees they saw there

Bungur Tree

Known to absorb air pollutants such as lead. Then the second These trees should be planted for reforestation in large cities, near the main streets crowded traffic.

 It's no secret anymore if the motor vehicle to be the largest contributor of lead in the air. In contrast, trees like acacia trees should not be green belt. Why? since become one of the originators acacia of asthma. Likewise, the beautiful shape of palm trees, not sogreat benefits.

Longan trees 

Hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis L)

Able to absorb nitrogen that make our lungs so relieved.

Longan trees

Longan trees can produce thousands of ping-pong ball sized fruits that are eaten fresh or dried. They look a bit similar to ‘langsat’ and ‘longkong’. The fruits (also called Dragon Eye) can be eaten fresh, but can also be dried. Dried fruits have a dark color and are eaten as snacks or can be used in cooking.

Longan is native to South and Southeast Asia. A lot of fruits are produced in Thailand, China and Taiwan.

Longan is a member of the same family (Sapindaceae) as some other valuable fruits, including lychee and rambutan.

Pollution

Got a city with a high ground pollution, cant seem to fix this problem at all, have planted a LOT of trees, got a water treatment, with enought to go around. And got water plant, with filter, just in case, but nothing works, is this a bug then?

Go to your parks and trees tabs look the the nature ones you will see the tree with the arrow on it chose that one.

Find the areas with ground pollution and plant those growing tree's in those area's.

They die off as they clean the land so you have to go back from time to time and replant them till the area has been cleaned up so keep an eye on those areas for needed replanting.

It is the only FAST way to clean it all up. Eventually over time it happens but it would take forever without the help of those planted and growing tree's.

• Trees have great benefits, such as raising the ground water tables in LA, and are useful helping to capture, filter, and restore rainwater to the groundwater table.


• A tree reduce topsoil erosion, prevent harmful land pollutants contained in the soil from getting into our waterways, slows down water runoff, and ensures that our ground water supplies are continually being replenished. For every 5% of tree cover added to a community, storm water runoff is reduced by approximately 2%.


• Research by the USFS shows that in a 1 inch rainstorm over 12 hours, the interception of rain by the canopy of the urban forest in Salt Lake City reduces surface runoff by about 11.3 million gallons or 17%. These values would increase as the canopy increases as well.


• Along with breaking the fall of rainwater, tree roots remove nutrients harmful to water ecology and quality.


• Trees act as natural pollution filters. Their canopies, trunks, roots, and associated soil and other natural elements of the landscape filter polluted particulate matter out of the flow toward the storm sewers. Reducing the flow of storm water reduces the amount of pollution that is washed into a drainage area. Trees use nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium- byproducts of urban living-which can pollute streams.


• More than 8% of children in Los Angeles - 217,000 - suffer from asthma. Studies have shown that an increase in tree-lined streets could lower that number by almost 25%.


• Research presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference (AAAS) in Chicago showed that the presence of trees could cut crime by as much as 7%


• Two University of Illinois researchers (Kuo and Sullivan) studied how well residents of the Chicago Robert Taylor Housing Project (the largest public housing development in the world) were doing in their daily lives based upon the amount of contact they had with trees, and came to some the following conclusions:
  
  - Trees have the potential to reduce social service budgets, decrease police calls for domestic violence, strengthen urban communities, and decrease the incidence of child abuse according to the study. Chicago officials heard that message last year. The city government spent $10 million to plant 20,000 trees, a decision influenced by Kuo's and Sullivan's research, according to the Chicago Tribune.
  
  - Researchers found fewer reports of physical violence in homes that had trees outside the buildings. Of the residents interviewed, 14% of residents living in barren conditions have threatened to use a knife or gun against their children versus 3% for the residents living in green conditions.

A traditional filter strip is a grass area that is intended to treat sheet flow from adjacent impervious areas. Sheet flow is runoff that flows over land with no defined channels. Filter strips function by slowing runoff velocities, filtering out sediment and other pollutants, and providing some infiltration into underlying soils.

A forested filter strip provides a similar function but incorporates trees and a small ponding zone  into the design  The ponding zone is a small depression with a low berm where water ponds during most storm events (e.g., around a 1-inch rainfall). 

The entire filter strip is planted with trees and shrubs, but since the depression is wetter than the remainder of the practice, the two zones are distinguished by referring to them as the ponding zone and the forested zone. 

Additional benefits provided by a forested filter strip include evapotranspiration, wildlife habitat, and infiltration promoted by macropore formation. 

It is time to dissociate logging and progress. It is not.

Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laSsTU0gzYo

Forests in City Architecture

By Liliana Usvat
Blog 306-365

A forest planted by humans, then left to nature’s own devices, typically takes at least 100 years to mature.

Deforestation is actively destroying about 13 million hectares (32 million acres) of forest every year. The biggest, most valuable trees are logged for timber. Often the smaller, less valuable trees are left remaining… for a while. 

We need to do something about it.

Toronto Canada

For decades, legions of city planners and landscape architects have treated trees as mere decorations, or worse, removed trees altogether to make way for more glass and concrete, manicured lawns and decorative flowerbeds.

But those old attitudes are changing. Today,city planning bureaus around the world are making room for urban foresters, and experts are playing a key role in multidisciplinary teams of city planners, landscape architects, engineers, developers, geographers and sociologists.

Urban forests combat air and water pollution, they reduce water runoff, and they provide shade and protection. 

 What type of trees should be planted, and where? How large will they grow, and how long will they live?

Native city trees contained 25 times more bird and insect activity than their non- native counterparts.


On March 23rd and 24th, 2011 over 210 delegates from 16 countries gathered for the first Global Greenbelts Conference in Toronto, Canada. Delegates identified universal and well-established benefits to people who live and work in all greenbelts and surrounding communities. The result: a call to action to establish an International Greenbelt Network. The Network will maximize greenbelt benefits, and protect and expand their boundaries. 

Chile

If there's any power in design, that's the power of synthesis. The more complex the problem, the more the need for simplicity.


Chile, in 2010, was hit by an 8.8 Richter scale earthquake and tsunami, and architects were called to work in the reconstruction of the Constitución, in the southern part of the country. They were given 100 days, three months, to design almost everything, from public buildings to public space, street grid, transportation, housing, and mainly how to protect the city against future tsunamis. 

Here are some ideas that they came up with:

• What if, in between the city and the sea we have a forest, a forest that doesn't try to resist the energy of nature, but dissipates it by introducing friction? 
• A forest that may be able to laminate the water and prevent the flooding? 
• That may pay the historical debt of public space,and that may provide, finally, democratic access to the river. 
• So as a conclusion of the participatory design, the alternative was validated politically and socially, but there was still the problem of the cost: 48 million dollars. 
• So survey in the public investment system,  found out that there were three ministries with three projects in the exact same place, not knowing of the existence of the other projects. The sum of them: 52 million dollars. So design's power of synthesis is trying to make a more efficient use of the scarcest resource in cities, which is not money but coordination. By doing so,  the forest is today under construction.

Seattle USA

Forest in the midst of a turbulent, roaring city; it sounds like something from an amazing dream, but in Seattle it soon will be quite real. With the self-sustaining Food Forest, Seattle is bringing urban agriculture to a higher level, by creating a place where anyone and everyone can go to harvest fruits and vegetables for free.

The city decided to turn a seven-acre plot of land in the city’s Beacon Hill neighbourhood into an enormous food forest. The forest will contain all sorts of edibles; from apples to herbs and walnut trees. Even more exotic fruits won’t be excluded: pineapples or guaves, they will be there. All of this wll be available for free plucking to everyone that takes a stroll through the forest.
UK

The garden city movement is a method of urban planning that was initiated in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. Garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by "greenbelts", containing proportionate areas, of residences, industry and agriculture.

Vietnam

300 Year Old Food Forest in Vietnam, A Families 28 Generation Old Food Forest That Provides Everything They Need All-Year-Round

Ideas for Reforestation

Halt deforestation, save the remaining trees and use them to shade and protect new food producing trees. Gradually introduce fruit and nuts trees and other beneficial plants such as bamboo and medicinal trees. Land like this is abundant worldwide. In some area it’s cheap enough every one can afford it.

Ideas under consideration for 1 hectare (108,000 sq. ft. = area 328’x328’): 

• drill a well and build a pump house; 
• plant a living fence around the perimeter to keep out neighbor’s cattle (build at least one gate for access); 
• grind up some of the least desirable trees for wood chip mulch; 
• save nitrogen fixing trees and any other useful trees; 
• run pigs through the area to fertilize the soil; 
• start a giant compost pile using local organic matter; 
• make ‘hugelkulture swales’ to slow runoff; 
• start planting some new fruit trees right before the rainy season and after the pigs are removed; 
• cover the area with nitrogen fixing groundcovers and straw and wood chips to suppress the weeds; 
• run drip irrigation to each new tree after the rainy season; 
• add compost around new trees and make a new compost pile each year;
•  gradually replace lesser value trees with more beneficial trees and plants over the next 2-3 years as time and finances allow.

Links

https://www.ted.com/talks/alejandro_aravena_my_architectural_philosophy_bring_the_community_into_the_process/transcript?language=en

http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/greenbelt/pages/261/attachments/original/1395758222/Toronto_Declaration_for_Global_Greenbelts_FINAL.pdf?1395758222
http://www.naturalbuildingblog.com/transition-forest-gardens/
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=778FCADEFE5591AE1DA3F1177108B978

Chewing Gum Tree

By Liliana Usvat
Blog 305-365

Other Names

Sapodilla (Manilkara zapota)

Description

The sapodilla tree is a slow growing evergreen that can reach heights of 100 feet. Strong and wind-resistant, it maintains an extensive root system. Within the tree’s bark is the white, gummy sap the tree is famous for, called chicle. The glossy green leaves are clustered in spirals at the tip of forked twigs. Sapodilla flowers are small, bell shaped and cream colored. The fruit is shaped like an egg with rough, brown skin when ripe, which protects the grainy yellow fruit inside.

The unique chewing gum called, Chicza, is made from totally organic rainforest ingredients that will biodegrade in around six weeks.  

In less ideal conditions when disposed of on tarmac or concrete roads and pavements, it will biodegrade in around three months. 

Chicle  is a natural gum traditionally used in making chewing gum and other products. It is collected from several species of Mesoamerican trees in the Manilkara genus, including M. zapota, M. chicle, M. staminodella, and M. bidentata.

The tapping of the gum is similar to the tapping of latex from the rubber tree: zig-zag gashes are made in the tree trunk and the dripping gum is collected in small bags. It is then boiled until it reaches the correct thickness. Locals who collect chicle are called chicleros.

The scars are permanent to the tree. Chicleros, or the extractors, generally mark trees with their own unique symbol so that they can keep track of when a tree was last tapped. Preferably, the trees were left untouched for five years between cuttings to ensure that they would continue to produce latex.

Chicle is collected from the tree by cutting into the bark, much like rubber, which causes the tree to excrete it and it runs down the trunk. And yes, it can also be extracted from the leaves. When plucked from a branch, the leaves will produce a small amount of latex as a way of protecting the tree from damage by insects or herbivores.

The greatest concentration of indigenous sapodillas are found in Quintana Roo, and are probably the remnants of active cultivation by the ancient Maya or were simply spared by ancient farmers when they cleared the forests for their fields. 


When the bark of the sapodilla is cut with a machete (a large knife that chicle extractors use) or attacked by insects or animals, the tree produces a milky fluid that forms a protective layer over the damaged area .

It is this substance, known as chicle latex, that has been used for hundreds of years in the Americas as chewing gum. Natural latexes, such as chicle and rubber, are usually a white, thick liquid, although at times they can be clear, 

yellow, red, or orange and runny. Latex generally has no smell, which makes it 

quite different from plant resins such as pine tar and copal incense that contain 

oils, and have a strong scent.

The contemporary Maya refer to the sapodilla tree astzicte’ ya’, “wounded noble tree.” 

This is a descriptive name that reflects the way in which the latex is obtained. Chicleros (chicle extractors) harvest the chicle by cutting a machete into the flesh along the length of the tree in a zigzag pattern, and allowing the latex to run down the tree. 

This is a process that the Maya have likely been using for hundreds, if not thousands of years, as the ancient Maya recognized that chewing this rubbery resin quenched thirst and staved off hunger.

Ancient Mesoamericans saw copal and rubber as the “blood of the tree” and used it as a primary ingredient for creating offerings to their gods, as well as for everyday uses. 

It is quite likely that they similarly viewed chicle latex as a natural product that could serve ritual and practical purposes. While it was certainly not traded as widely nor was it as prevalent in ritual settings as copal and rubber, we know that the Maya have used chicle as a kind of incense, as well as wrapped it on the outside of ritual copal offerings.

How did the Aztecs view chicle?

The Aztecs had very strict social norms, which thankfully are documented in an amazing resource known as the Florentine Codex. This is a series of twelve books that was written under the supervision of the Spanish friar known as Bernadino de Sahagunstarting in 1540. In it, he noted what “good” and “bad” people did in society. “Bad” people included men and married women that chewed gum in public – only children and old women were allowed to get away with this shameful behavior. 

Men and women who failed to follow these social norms were socially ostracized as “whores” or “sodomites” in an attempt to discourage this behavior. 

 Some researchers believe that Maya elites controlled the access to the trees by growing them in their city centers. 

Four hundred years later, proper young ladies, for example, should never chew gum in public because “watching someone chew gum is, as older generations say, like watching a cow chew its cud.” Yet, it was still sold in the public marketplace because the Aztecs knew it served a practical purpose of cleaning teeth and freshening breath—they just didn’t want people to actually use it in front of anyone.

Fruit

The sapodilla tree produces a sweet egg-shaped fruit known as “sapote” that was used as an ancient Maya and Aztec food source.

Habitat: 

The sapodilla tree is native to southern Mexico, Belize and northeastern Guatemala.  It also grows in the West Indies and the Old World tropics, where it was introduced for cultivation centuries ago.

LINKS

http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102002132

http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/artefacts/chewing-gum-tree

http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/kids/species-profiles/sapodilla