In the 1930s, America planted 220 million trees across Dust Bowl farmland; decades later, thousands of km of shelterbelts still protected farms and wildlife

In the 1930s, the Dust Bowl hit America’s Great Plains and was caused by more than drought alone. Years of intensive ploughing, drought and strong winds blew away fertile topsoil and damaged farms across the central United States. To combat this, the government launched a tree-planting programme across the Plains.

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