About the Project
“Ectomycorrhizal Reforestation Project” focuses on supporting reforestation for climate change mitigation. Since the situation of climate change is getting worse every second, how can we support each other? to increase forest successfully and make the forest grow and expand as quickly as possible. Therefore, our project concept will
1. Encourage everyone to grow diversified species of native plants; since native plant species can grow well in their own forest habitat and match with the climate, topography and ecosystem. So native plants will have a better chance of survival and mature faster which can help us to reduce the time used for reforestation.
2. Introduce edible ectomycorrhizal fungi inoculation in some families of native plants; e.g. Dipterocarpaceae which is a host species of ectomycorrhizae. Because this fungal group enhances plant health and tolerance to highly challenging and vulnerable environment in the present time, the plant therefore can grow successfully.
Moreover, another benefit of inoculating edible ectomycorrhizal fungi in native plant seedlings for reforestation is, after approximately 3 years once a host seedling has become a healthy sapling or tree, there is a chance that wild mushroom fruit bodies will bloom in the planting area if the weather is perfect in terms of humidity and sunlight. Examples of wild mushrooms are Astraeus odoratus, Amanita hemibapha, Russula emetica. We can collect those wild mushrooms for household consumption, or sharing, or selling if there are too many of them. But we must not collect all. To conserve a sustainable consumption and wild mushrooms in our planting area, we have to leave some of them to propagate for our children and grandchildren. As a reminder, wild mushrooms will only stay if they have their hosts, so it is important that all of us must not destroy our food source by destroying the host trees or burning the land which will kill beneficial fungi like mycorrhizae and other microorganisms. If we protect and take care of our forest well, we will gain a lot from our forest, e.g. food, income, security. With abundant benefits of “ectomycorrhizal reforestation”, we hope that it will draw more attention from everyone to grow more forest and would take care of the forest until there is no more time for us on earth.
