Sometimes we get asked if we have anything to do with trees. Well, you can see for yourself.

The first bonsai tree we bought for our office looked like this. 

Two years later, it looked like this.

But our second bonsai tree – which is fortunately still alive – looks like this.

What’s the secret?

Mummification. We bought a mummified bonsai.

Okay, okay. It’s the loophole, not cool, we get it. Does planting some real trees compensate for our actions? How about thousands of pedunculate oaks?

Celebrating Earth day with style

One hectare of newly planted oak trees. A gift from bonsai.tech and Span to the Earth.

To deliver the surprise, a few nature-lovers from our team drove two hours east of Zagreb to plant a lot more than two trees. More like six thousand and two.

And you assumed right that we haven’t done it manually. That would be a lot of fieldwork and after all, we do like to achieve Excellence Through Automation. So, the afforestation was done by a drone.

On this adventure, our crew learned new things about forests, participated in a workshop by making seed bombs, and threw them on the open field.

“The percentage of forests on our planet has decreased by 20% in the last 10 000 years. The big problem is the excessive logging. But Europe is a good example of how some developed countries are investing in afforestation. And Projekt O2 got involved in the afforestation of hardly accessible areas.” – Ivan Beno, Projekt O2

Since we were good guests, we got a chance to operate the nasty machine. 

What do we mean by “a nasty machine”

If you first imagined the drone as a little fella on four legs the size of an iPad, you are dead wrong. It’s a heavy-duty piece of machinery with multiple cylinders that can absorb up to 100 seed bombs.

We may have exaggerated the whole comparison thing, but we are talking about an impressive machine here.

The drone itself has 25 kilograms and can carry weight up to 10 kilograms. It consumes one set of batteries for the 30-minute flight, when it can dump around 1 000 bombs, enough to afforest 2 000 m2.

“Drones can reach places that can’t be accessed by people on foot or in vehicles. We are the only ones in Croatia who have the permit to drop cargo from the air, and alleys/tree lines are planned along predetermined straight lines – 100 meters of 100 seed bombs.” – Ivan Vidaković, the drone pilot at Projekt O2

The drone is used because it’s the most effective way of afforestation. It can reach inaccessible places and eject 10 seed bombs before you can say, “And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”

Bombs. Seed bombs.

One fallen acorn has a 1% chance of growing into a tree. That’s a percentage unacceptable for any kind of planned afforestation.

It took some time, two years to be exact, for Projekt O2 to find a more efficient solution they would be happy with. They designed a seed bomb that has a 20% chance of growing into a tree upon the ejaculation from the tailor-made drone.

Now that is amazing.

These self-germinating seed bombs consist of indigenous seeds, soil, water, sand, clay, and fertilizers, with the addition of flaxseed oil or hot pepper to repel the animals and parasites.

Now seriously, why are we doing this

It’s part of our giving-back-to-the-community plan.

It ain’t much, but it’s honest work.

Last year, we donated money for the electro stimulator that can bring people their voices back. A year before that, we developed a chatbot to indirectly support children in need. 

And this year, we did a little something for future generations.

Dušan and Goran were – and still are – looking for partners to save forests. We gladly answered their call, but we can only do so much. If this seems like a nice initiative you would also like to support, reach out to the friendly crew of ecology lovers behind Projekt O2 and make their day.

We still have half of the year ahead of us – who knows what we’ll get up to.