Planting trees for a better future

News form Thailand

With government assistance, Thai farmers can make significant income and contribute to a healthier planet through carbon credits.

Most Thai farmers plant trees and simply pray for good prices as their parents did for decades, but Sawai Sangsa-wang realised his trees are more valuable.

With the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) programme, also known as carbon credits, his perennial tree-planting not only produces income from payoon and teak, but he can also turn every tonne of carbon his plants reduce into income.

A Nakhon Si Thammarat native, Mr Sawai has grown trees most of his life. Last year, he started to grow more trees on his farmland in Chumphon once he learned about carbon credits.

A tree can help reduce 1.18 tonnes of carbon a year on average, acknowledged Mr Sawai, who is now the head of the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Co-operatives (BAAC) branch in Surat Thani.

''A company from Denmark has approached me through its agent in Singapore to buy credits generated from the plants,'' he said.

While the majority of Thais are not aware of carbon credits, Mr Sawai has become a role model and been provided opportunities through training in Japan to learn about the global carbon trading market and CDM.

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Toyota Holds Tree-planting Event in Thailand

Tokyo, Aug 04, 2008, Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) announced today that Toyota Motor Thailand Co., Ltd. (TMT) carried out Thailand's largest-ever[1] tree-planting event at TMT's Ban Pho Plant in Chachoengsao Province, Thailand.
More than 10,000 volunteers?including local residents, officials of Chachoengsao Province, Toyota suppliers and dealers, and plant employees and their family members?gathered to give root to approximately 100,000 trees at and around the vehicle production facility.

The event?representing TMC's ongoing effort to plant trees at and around vehicle production facilities as part of its global sustainable plant activities[2]?was designed to create a multi-layered natural environment using trees native to the area and to create a production site that could serve as a lush and diverse habitat for various living creatures. Based on a survey of the local flora, 34 types of tree including yang-na and takien thong were selected, with approximately 100,000 trees planted in total.

The Ban Pho Plant, which began operation in 2007, is aimed at being an innovative plant in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of its production technology and environmental response. It has achieved zero landfill waste since commencing operations and was the first overseas TMC plant to introduce a cogeneration system and solar panels, which enable it to cut its CO2 emissions by 9,000 tons annually. In addition, wastewater is recycled at the plant and water-borne metallic-paint is used in vehicle body paint lines. Currently, a biotope[3] being created at the plant will promote the reuse of materials from production and production-related processes, such as using wood from shipping crates to build bridges, waste plastic to create benches, and blocks made from solidified waste to pave footpaths.

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