United Nations Billion Tree Campaign

Logo of the Billion Tree Campaign

Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign is a worldwide tree planting campaign established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) with the goal of a billion trees being planted during 2007. In May 2007 the United Nations (U.N.) announced it had already received pledges to plant the planned billion trees.^[1]

About the Billion Tree Campaign

Under the Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign, anyone, from individuals and communities, to corporations and nations are asked to enter tree-planting pledges on a special website set up by UNEP. Pledges are verified to prevent fraud. The campaign is the brainchild of Professor Wangari Maathai, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 and founder of Kenya's Green Belt Movement, which has planted more than 30 million trees in 12 African countries since 1977. Professor Maathai underlined the need for the campaign by saying: "People talk too much. We are no longer talking, we are working. The challenge now is to tell the world to go dig holes and plant seedlings. I've no doubt we will achieve our goal."^[2]

Response

The plan has received some negative criticism. Kevin Smith (no relation to the American screenwriter), author of The Carbon Neutral Myth argues that planting a billion trees will do nothing to mitigate global warming. He released a report stating "You can't just say, 'There's a billion extra trees; it's automatically good for the environment. You have to work out the local context, where you're planting them, and what type of trees you're planting."^[3]

World Agroforestry Centre, a global Non-governmental organization, and an international leader in the science and practice of integrating working trees on small farms in rural landscapes, provides scientific support to the Billion Tree Campaign by providing information on what trees to plant, where to plant, and how to plant through its website. [2]

Worldwide response has been mostly positive, however. The nation of Turkey pledged to plant 200 million trees.^[4] A school in New Zealand planted 300 trees as part of the campaign.^[5] Senegal pledged 20 million seedlings.^[6]

Quotes from the Patrons

"We have but a short time to avert damaging and economically debilitating climate change. The solutions are numerous and, as many economists’ say, affordable when compared with the costs of complacency. The goods and services provided by forests are worth billions if not trillions of dollars to the global economy. Forests are natural and economically important ‘sinks’, sequestrating carbon from the atmosphere and locking it away in trunks and branches. Globally, forest cover is at least one-third less than what it once was. It is time to reverse the trends, it is time to act." --Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director [3]

"I believe in the symbolic strength of the Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign and I sincerely hope it will meet our expectations, far beyond the welfare linked to replanting trees, to benefit future generations." --Albert II, Prince of Monaco [4]

"When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope." --Prof. Wangari, Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. [5]

Initiatives supported

• Tree-nationis an internet community dedicated to fighting Climate Change. The website aims to plant 8 million trees in the desert of Niger, the poorest country in the world, in shape of a giant heart that could be visible from space. By selling those trees to companies and people all over the world, tree-nation wants to participate to offset CO2 emissions and more locally to fight against poverty and desertification. Tree-Nation offers the possibility to plant trees on a virtual map. The Virtual Trees have Blogs and Profiles, while the real ones are plant in Niger, fighting climate change and desertification. The project will benefit local populations' welfare, education and farming practices.
• Plant for the Planet is a campaign by engaged young people and pupils of different schools, supporting the aim of the United Nations to plant at least 2007 one billion trees. Thus we want to improve the CO2-balance and create an intensified consciousness for the problem of global warming.

External links

• United Nations Environment Programme
• Billion Tree Campaign
• World Agroforestry Centre's Science Support Website to The Billion Tree Campaign
• Tree-Nation - The website aims to plant 8 million trees in the desert of Niger, the poorest country in the world, in shape of a giant heart
• Plant for the Planet - Initiative in Germany - Children and youth support the One Billion Tree Campaign of the United Nations.

References