AARHUS, Denmark: Near Aarhus city on Denmark’s east coast, former farmland is being transformed into forests under a US$6 billion plan to convert 10 per cent of the nation’s agricultural land into natural habitats.
The aim is to cut the amount of fertilisers seeping into the groundwater, depleting its oxygen levels and harming marine life in the process, as well as capture carbon from the environment.
The European Union (EU) has pledged more than US$700 million to support landowners who participate in this environmental transition.
The bloc has also set a 2040 target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90 per cent compared to 1990 levels.
However, its broader anti-deforestation efforts have struggled to get off the ground.
RESTORING NATURE AND THE CLIMATE
Mads Flinterup, head of climate and biodiversity at nature management firm Hedeselskabet, said Denmark’s afforestation plan could rejuvenate both its waters and the country’s climate ambitions.
“If we take the carbon-rich soils and make them wet again, then we’ll have better carbon sequestration in them. Where we do afforestation, the trees will sequester the carbon, and that will also mitigate the climate crisis,” he added.
The process of rewetting Denmark’s peat-rich soils helps trap carbon that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere, while new forests absorb more of the greenhouse gas.
Through projects like this, Danish authorities plan to plant 1 billion trees over the next two decades.