TL;DR : Technically speaking the answer is a no, but there is always hope.
A lesser known factoid of Straya is that it is very well known for vast expanses of steppes and sandy desert sprawling from the heart of the country/continent. This big ass remote interior of Australia is colloquially known as the Outback.
Given the devastating summer bushfire in 2020 and its haunting consequences to Australia's biodiversity, it accentuated my burning question of whether any part, any piece of 6,000,000+ sq. kms of nothingness can be reforested or at least, cultivated.
It is immediately apparent that the intense heat accumulated during summer and the difficulty of clouds reaching inland makes reforestation efforts next to impossible. Australia has been geologically stable for millions of years and the last volcano literally erupted 5000 years ago. And the considerable lack of mountains in the interior prevents any chance of precipitation over the area and rivers are few and far between. The evaporation here is so intense that it could drain an entire basin worth of water in decades and groundwater is simply negligible.
Climate challenges aside, the logistics of tree planting in the Outback can be a daunting task. Because the job depends heavily on manpower from volunteers and full-time tree planters, the process of greening is painfully slow and expensive. As the vast majority of Aussies huddle in cities along the coastal areas, this dusty big area is practically devoid of infrastructures. Towns and even cities will have to be built from scratch to accommodate colonies of workers and volunteers. The plan is incredibly water-intensive as nearly the entire water supply for irrigation needs to be sourced from coasts thousands of km(s) away.
But maybe there is respite ?
Even though there is nothing much we can do for the interior, the good news is that the semi-arid regions and adjacent deserts are relatively wetter by international standards. By planting trees in regions cornering the great deserts, we can somehow stop the deserts from encroaching further into the coast. The most well-known tree planting project that does exactly this is called The Great Green Wall in the Sahel region, where countries in the African Union plant a gigantic tree fence in an effort stop the Sahara desert from expanding southward and even shrink deserts, if we were to use the right techniques and follow best practices in land restoration.
Planting trees around the outback is no less challenging than the Great Green Wall, but the country offers some sort of silver lining. A sizable portion of Australians have volunteered once in their lives and there is absolutely no shortage of environmental agencies and NGOs headquartered in kangaroo-land. On top of that, more and more Aussies are made aware of the implications that climate change did to their nation and there are some pressure to the federal government to do something about it.
In conclusion, planting even the most drought-resistant trees in the middle of the desert is a total pipe dream. But by restoring tropical/subtropical forests in regions adjacent to the desert, it is hoped that more rain will be brought to the area and more moisture will be concentrated in the ground, and that would set a framework for future inland expansions. Logistics would be the biggest obstacle in achieving this, but when that has ever stopped mankind from creating life-changing inventions ?
What I read
Can we do this and what plant can we use ?
Appendices:
(1): NGO groups like ReForest Now, EIANZ, ALGA, etc.
