Several years ago, as a means of using the power of the internet to find stories of interest for this newsletter, I created a few Google Alerts. They were designed to look for stories in the mid-Atlantic area that were related to trees and forests. While they weren't always perfect (for example, it took me a while to train them that I wasn't looking for stories related to Wake Forest University athletics), they have sent me to stories that I never would have found otherwise. One such story sent me down a rabbit hole that resulted in learning about a term I'd never heard before: “treewashing.”
Years of researching and writing non-fiction books taught me the importance of not just primary sources but also corroborating sources. It also taught me to be skeptical of news stories based on only one source. One such story led me to that new term, treewashing. Treewashing is a subset of the more familiar greenwashing. It’s the practice of using tree planting or forest projects as a marketing shield for business-as-usual pollution. While tree planting campaigns can help the planet in lots of ways, they are beneficial only when they're carefully designed, transparent, and backed by science. (See page 5 for one such effort by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.)
Researchers at Stanford University write that poorly designed mass tree planting drives can actually do more harm than good, especially when they replace naturally diverse ecosystems with single-species plantations. These projects may store less carbon, increase fire risk, and undermine local biodiversity. Similarly, environmental scholars from Yale University caution that large monoculture plantations may hold only a fraction of the carbon that natural forests can store and can reduce wildlife habitat. So, when a company promotes such projects as a cure-all to offset its emissions, that's what's called treewashing.
US regulators such as the Federal Trade Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency have begun to address this kind of misleading environmental marketing. If you're trying to evaluate the claims made by a particular company or service for yourself, start with this: Treat tree planting promises as a starting point for questions, not as a proof of responsibility. Look for details on what species were planted, who is managing the land, and whether the company is also cutting emissions elsewhere. You'll also want to determine if possible, the survivability of the tree planting efforts.
That brings us back to the story that started all of this. The story touted the efforts by a heavy equipment company to plant trees on reclaimed mining lands in West Virginia. Was this treewashing? A few factors seem to argue against it. First, this was a multi-year project covering more than 100 acres and several hundred thousand trees. The company was providing not only staff but also heavy equipment to rip the densely packed soil so the seedlings had a better chance of surviving. Finally, they were working in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and a local non-profit. However, the jury is out as to the long-term survivability of what has been planted; only time will tell if this was treewashing or a genuinely beneficial reforestation effort.