{"id":929483,"date":"2026-10-15T21:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T21:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/929483\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T21:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T21:04:14","slug":"dropping-tree-seeds-from-the-sky-stunt-or-solution-for-reforestation-short-wave-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/929483\/","title":{"rendered":"Dropping tree seeds from the sky: stunt or solution for reforestation? : Short Wave : NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

\n In 2022, a skydiver dropped 100 million seeds over the Amazon to fight deforestation. Pedro Brancalion explains the science of regrowth.<\/p>\n

Sarayut Thaneerat\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

hide caption\n <\/p>\n

toggle caption
\n i<\/p>\n

Sarayut Thaneerat\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

In 2022, parachutist Luigi Cani dropped 100 million seeds over the Amazon rainforest while skydiving. He did it to raise awareness about deforestation and help regrow the forest. But there has been little scientific follow up to see whether it worked. So, today, we talk to restoration ecologist Pedro Brancalion about the surprising complexity involved in regrowing a forest, and when dropping seeds from the sky \u2013 by people or by drones \u2013 could work.<\/p>\n

If you liked this episode, check out our others on building microforests in cities<\/a> and scientists’ creative idea to save a keystone tree species<\/a> that grows very slowly.<\/p>\n

Interested in more tree science? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Listen to Short Wave on Spotify<\/a> and Apple Podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This episode was produced by Berly McCoy and Juan Diego Ramirez. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. The audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2022, a skydiver dropped 100 million seeds over the Amazon to fight deforestation. Pedro Brancalion explains the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":929484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":["post-929483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/929484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}