image © Dendra Systems

SOURCE Bloomberg Australia / By Ed Johnson : As huge wildfires tear through California, Oregon and Washington, an Australian company says it holds the key to reseeding devastated forests and fast-tracking the recovery: Drones.

Dendra Systems surveys vast areas of scorched land with specialized drones, which can then be used to sow seeds of native species much faster than traditional manual planting. Ongoing overflights can also provide a constant flow of real-time data on the progress of regeneration.

“We’ve got an aerial feeding system, it has been called a sky tractor, so that we can get into those hard to reach places,” said Susan Graham, Dendra’s chief executive officer and co-founder. “It’s much more efficient to be flying over the ground than walking over it.”

Dendra is also working with global resources giants including Glencore, BHP and Rio Tinto on restoring land to its natural state after a mine’s life has ended. Read more here from my colleague James Thornhill.