“Man-Made forest”. It sounds contradictory and logic at the same time. A man-made forest is a forest created by men, as we are doing nowadays around the world to recover the lost forests. Reforestation. But would that be sufficient?

Bohol has a huge men-made forest. I have to admit, it is beautiful, georgeous. The road towards it is covered by their branches reaching one to another, as a nature-made tunnel in the middle of the men-made forest.

They are enormous. Their roots keep together the soil around the pathways, some are circling over and around rocks, others are just running slightly below or under the surface. From hair thin lines, almost wrinkles in the earth, like small waves in the ocean; to strong branches, who root the tree firmly in the earth, where it is rooted for ages already. Up in the sky they connect to each other again, creating a nature-made shelter of the man-made forest.

Bright Idea for on the Road

What attracts my attention, however, is not up in the sky, but precisely at the surface. When the night sets in, the darkness falls over the island where in lots of places no electricity applies, especially not on the roads. Which is not too bad, considering light pollution and electricity consumption. However, in terms of safety or orientation it can become more inconvenient.

Bohol find a genius way to balance between the darkness and the idea of some countries that the roads even have to visible out of space. In the middle of the roads, small LED-lights are lighting the path, like a fairy tale lane up to heaven the thin but bright lane of white lights guides you through the night.

No waste of energy, no light pollution, but no disorientation and absolute darkness as well. I cannot determine if these lights contain a little solar panel and battery to be charged during the day, but it seems like and if not it would be the cherry on the cake.

I wished all countries could see this simple genius solution of Bohol and implement it. Even though that would mean that aliens could no longer check our high way traffic out of the sky – I’m actually not sure if that is necessary, tough.