Drone seeding and E-seeds sound exciting, but ecosystem restoration needs practical solutions

• It gently lands on the bare ground and sits there, exposed to the elements, until it rains.
• But, from a restoration practitioner’s point of view, it has logistical issues that can greatly limit its application at scale.

Unproven ‘game-changers’

• Numerous private companies have entered the market with revolutionary devices (mostly drones), claiming to restore ecosystems by planting billions of trees.
• This fascination with shiny technological gadgets might divert scarce resources from practical, on-the-ground solutions that will seriously affect our ability to restore degraded ecosystems globally.
• For decades, scientists and practitioners have been working on solutions to support and accelerate the recovery of degraded ecosystems.

Most seeds fail

• For a start, seeds need to reach the right place in the soil to germinate and grow.
• If seeds are scattered (seed broadcasting) on the soil surface by hand, tractor or drone, they can be blown off by the wind or eaten by animals.
• As a result, most seeds will not become a plant.
• This stopped the seed from clumping but greatly reduced the number of seeds that could be delivered on each drone flight.
• This clumping seeds issue is also common when dealing with native species, such as the grasses that inspired the design of the E-seed.

Effective, not flamboyant

• Therefore, we must approach ecosystem restoration holistically and not get carried away by the lure of shiny technologies.
• Funders with limited appreciation of restoration’s ecological and practical complexities are keen to embrace and invest in charismatic, yet often unproven technologies.
• We should focus on the most effective ways to restore native ecosystems, not the most flamboyant.