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On Monday, Dutch reforestation company LandLife started a 35,000-hectare forest fire in Spain.
The fire started in Aragon, the capital of the autonomous community of Zaragoza, in the province of Zaragoza, when a LandLife contractor planted trees and accidentally ignited the surrounding plant life.
“The fire started when one of our contractors was using a retro-spider excavator to prepare the soil for planting trees later in the winter” Land Life he said in a statement. on Thursday. “Operators have alerted emergency services. Emergency crews are working continuously to contain the fire and have established the perimeter of the fire as an opportunity. However, we are saddened by the latest estimate of the damage to be around 14,000 hectares” or approximately 35,000 acres.
“A spark from one of the excavations started the fire while a reforestation contractor was working in the area,” the company wrote. In an earlier press release.
LandLife is a carbon offset company, which means that by planting trees, it theoretically offsets carbon emissions from polluting industries. It is not clear how many hectares of land planted trees – a blog post proposed that The company plans to plant around 20,000 acres between 2020-2021.
This forest fire did not wipe out the lion’s share of Land Life’s work, but it is not the first forest fire to happen to Land Life – on June 20, a fire started that destroyed 20 hectares of land. (49 acres). “It’s not good that they happen once and keep doing it,” said the Bubirka mayor. They spoke Local media. “The government of Aragon should have stopped the movement instead of recommending it, because there is time to rebuild these hills, as soon as you throw iron on the stone, fire will break out.”
Land Life describes itself as “tech-enabled,” saying on LinkedIn that it uses technologies like drones, artificial intelligence and surveillance applications. It also seems to be a mess in blockchain technology, which he picked up. 3.5 million euros in 2018 To develop proprietary technology along the natural reforestation value chain. The company’s website itself doesn’t mention anything more about blockchain technology, but the 2018 press release announcing the Series A funding mentions “proprietary implant technologies, autonomous implants, remote monitoring and blockchain authentication.”
The fire forced authorities to evacuate five neighboring towns and nursing homes. In total, about 2,000 people had to be evacuated. The president of Aragon, Javier Lambán, said the incident was “worrisome and worrying”. As reported by local media.
Although the situation is better than the worst forecasts, we are keeping a watchful eye on all the alerts because weather changes can make moves on different fronts and the best is to act based on worst case scenarios. Lamban said.
