Content area
Full Text
How restoring forests across the United States can help address theunemployment crisis
"HARD WORK, low pay, miserable conditions, and more!"
On its face, the California Conservation Corps' motto might seem like more of a warning than a recruiting tool, but for thousands, it represents a promise: new skills, entry to a career, even a bit of an adventure.
And it fairly describes the work of roughly 3,400 young people the state agency trains each year for jobs in forestry and other conservation fields.
Planting tree seedlings on steep hillsides on hot summer days and thinning forests of dense vegetation so trees already planted there have room to grow is hard work.
Growing and taking care of trees in cities is also hard. Digging large holes for hardy trees that can withstand relatively harsh city environments and climbing trees to prune branches so they won't fall on cars and houses can be exhausting.
Yet it's the kind of work we desperately need more people to do as interest in trees as a solution to climate change and social inequity takes off across America.
And, despite how arduous this work is, the opportunity couldn't come at a better time. As of August, 1 in 10 Americans was unemployed. People from under-resourced communities in cities and rural areas - two places that have the highest potential for forestry jobs - are among the hardest hit by the recession.
The World Economic Forum-led global movement - called lt.org - to conserve, restore and grow 1 trillion trees by 2030 is one significant opportunity to create forestry jobs. Twenty-eight United States-based corporations, governments and nonprofits joined the movement this summer by pledging nearly 850 million trees. American Forests and the World Economic Forum, who lead the U.S. Chapter oflt.org, are helping to bring their pledges to life.
The opportunity to put large numbers of people to work also stems from another critical and related need: national forests in the U.S. have been devastated by climate change-induced wildfires, droughts, pests and diseases. There's already a 7.7-million-acre-backlog of land that needs to be brought back to life. In many places, addressing this need will require a combination of such things as planting trees and thinning dense forests to increase their resilience...