Now, 2bn trees over 20 years, is 100,000,000 trees per year, or just under 2,000,000 per week. This equates to approximately 200 trees every minute of every day, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 20 years!
So big numbers are always scary for those that can't comprehend them. However coming from a Project Management point of view how would we deal with this. Well we would need a workforce for a start, but how big would that work force be? and the trees would have to be planted all over the UK so lets break it down into counties.
There are 98 counties in the UK.
Now some counties would have the land to plant more trees and others less, but for the benefits of example and keeping it simple
Total Trees 2,000,000,000 (2 billion in 20 years)
Per Year 100,000,000
Per Month 8,333,333
per week 1,923,077
per day 274,725
Per 5 days equals 384,615 trees per day.
An experienced tree planter will plant 1500 trees a day. For the benefits of clarity, we are talking saplings and not full grown trees.
But lets go low and take a 1/3rd of that so we will work on each of our team members planting 500 trees/ saplings a day.
Great Britain[edit]Planting in Britain is commonly referred to as restocking, when it takes place on land that has recently been harvested. When occurring on previously unforested land it is known as new planting.[8] Under the British system, in order to acquire the necessary permissions to clearcut, the landowner must agree a management plan with the Forestry Commission (the regulatory body for all things forestry) which must include proposals for the re-establishment of tree cover on the land. Planting contractors will be engaged by the landowner/management company, a contract drawn up and work will typically take place from November to April when most of the transplants are dormant.
Planting is part of the rotational nature of much British plantation forestry. Productive tree crops are planted and subsequently clearcut. Some form of soil cultivation may take place and the ground is then restocked. Where the production of timber is a management priority, a prescribed stocking density must be achieved. For coniferous species this will be a minimum of 2500 stems per hectare at year 5 (from planting). Planting at this density has been shown to favour the development of straighter knot-free logs.
Planters are normally paid under piece work terms and an experienced worker will plant around 1500 trees a day under most conditions.
So far we need to plant 384,615 trees per day over 5 days a week.
Which means at 500 trees a day we will need a work force of 769 people
Now we have 98 counties in the UK so lets divide the workforce up into the counties.
769 / 98 = 7.8 so we need 8 people in each county planting trees. Think that's easily achievable don't you?
Now remember we only used a 1/3rd of the amount of trees that an experienced planter can do so this figure is low and means would take into account bad weather etc.
So the question is do you think we could employ 8 people planting trees in all the counties in the UK for 5 days a week for 20 years.
Not looking quite so silly now is it?
Ambitious maybe but definitely possible.
It benefits the UK, it provides employment and money back into the economy.
