One boy’s shared vision for more trees on our planet has now taken over the UN program to plant one trillion more. “Stop Talking. Start Planting.”
Climate Ambassador Felix Finkbeiner says “Plant for the Planet!”
The world is a greener place thanks to 20-year-old Felix Finkbeiner and his army of “climate ambassadors” who have pledged to plant trees and use youth power to avert climate change.
“Forests are not only the livelihood of billions, but for us children forests are our future.”
Since the age of nine, Felix Finkbeiner has been an international figurehead for saving the planet. In 2007, the German youngster founded a global youth movement called “Plant for the Planet” – an initiative that trains and recruits children from around the world to plant trees as a means of combatting climate change.
Since its creation, the movement has already made significant progress with the help of over 100,000 enthusiastic youth between the ages of 9 and 12—and Finkbeiner planted his one-millionth tree in Germany when he was just twelve.
Alongside the Paris Agreement, Finkbeiner’s campaign is a formidable defense of the planet, and his speeches as a pre-teen to the European Parliament and the United Nations General Assembly inspired children from over 90 countries to join his coalition, saying “Forests are not only the livelihood of billions, but for us children forests are our future.”
The United Nations then handed over to Felix the leadership of its Billion Tree Program, which was inspired by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist Kenyan Wangari Maathai, whose Green Belt Movement planted 30 million trees in Africa. He is enlarging the program, transforming it into a Trillion Tree Campaign: an audacious international grassroots effort to do exactly that – plant one trillion trees in the next 30 years.
Source: GoodNewsNetwork
“Stop talking, start planting,” — Felix Finkbeiner
There are currently about 3 trillion trees alive in the world today – so planting a trillion more would be an incredible increase. That’s roughly 150 trees for every person on Earth, according to National Geographic.
“Children could plant 1 million trees in every country on earth and offset CO2 emissions all on their own, while adults are still talking about doing it,” said Finkbeiner.
His motto, “Stop talking, start planting,” suggests the same sentiment.
The campaign is working in collaboration with organisations such as the World Wildlife Fund and the Wildlife Conservation Society to meet the ambitious goal.
The Campeche province of Mexico is already a staging ground for Finkbeiner’s no-nonsense motto. Plant for the Planet recently bought 33,300 acres (13,500 hectares) in the area and they plan to plant 10 million trees by 2020.
Other countries’ have their own plans for reforestation too:
- One province in Pakistan has planted 1 billion trees
- China is creating forests as big as Ireland
- a group of African countries (Ethiopia, Niger, Mali, etc.) are reforesting degraded land
- India recently smashed the world record for planting the most amount of trees in a day
- and Latin American nations are signing on to reforestation efforts in the Amazon, as well.
All of these combined initiatives offer great hope for the planet, but organisations aside, Finkbeiner is a textbook example of what we can all do on an individual level to save the planet if we just stop talking and start planting.
Source: GoodNewsNetwork
Plant-for-the-Planet: We plant trees for a better world. Help us children to save our future
Plant-for-the-Planet is an organisation that aims to raise awareness amongst children and adults about the issues of climate change and global justice. The Initiative also works to plant trees and considers this to be both a practical and symbolic action in efforts to reduce the effect of climate change. Click for more details.