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World tree drive's 7bn goal
13/05/2008 21:33 - (SA)
Oslo - A campaign to plant trees worldwide, Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign,
set a goal on Tuesday of seven billion by late 2009, just over
one for each person on the planet, to help protect the
environment and to slow climate change.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP), an organiser of the
tree planting drive begun in late 2006 with an initial goal of one
billion by the end of 2007, said governments, companies and
individuals had already pushed the total above two billion.
It set a target on Tuesday of an extra five billion
plantings by the time a UN climate conference in Denmark
started on November 30 next year, that was meant to agree a new
long-term treaty to combat climate change beyond the UN's
Kyoto Protocol.
'Must be do-able
"In 2006 we wondered if a billion tree target was too
ambitious; it was not," said Achim Steiner, head of UNEP.
"The goal of two billion trees has also proven to be an
underestimate. The goal of planting seven billion trees,
equivalent to just over a tree per person alive on the planet,
must therefore also be do-able," he said in a statement.
Cost effective
UNEP said that safeguarding and planting forests were among
the most cost-effective ways to slow climate change, blamed by
the UN Climate Panel on emissions of carbon dioxide from
burning fossil fuels in factories, power plants and cars.
Trees soak up carbon dioxide as they grow and release it
when burnt or when they rot. Deforestation accounts for over 20% of the carbon dioxide humans generate.
The campaign registers pledges of plantings on the Internet
but does not check that all seedlings or saplings are actually
planted or survive.
Ethiopia in the lead
"Regional and national governments organised the most
massive plantings, with Ethiopia leading the count at 700
million, followed by Turkey (400 million), Mexico (250 million),
and Kenya (100 million)," it said. Millions of individuals have also taken part.
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