Showing posts with label The Billion Tree Campaig. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Billion Tree Campaig. Show all posts

Monday, February 9, 2015

Reforestation of the Planet

By Liliana Usvat
Blog 293-365















The Billion Tree Campaign was inspired by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement. When an executive in the United States told Professor Maathai their corporation was planning to plant a million trees, her response was: “That’s great, but what we really need is to plant a billion trees.” The campaign was carried out under the patronage of Prince Albert II of Monaco.

December 2011, five years since the campaign’s launch, the campaign’s website www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign proudly registered over 12.5 billion planted trees across 193 countries.

Wangari Maathai was the inspiration for the Billion Tree Campaign, and she became its most fervent advocate. Professor Wangari Maathai, who died in 2011, saw the campaign flourish and far outpace its original goals. Butshe never lost sight of its humble origins.

 It was her own experience as founder of Kenya’s Green Belt Movement which taught her the importance of engaging stakeholders at every level of society. In 2006, shewrote: “Tree-planting does not require a great deal of money or technology; it requires the mobilisation of citizens to plant trees and nurture them.” As the Billion Tree Campaign enters the next phase of its existence, we remember Wangari Maathai, and her words have even greater significance than ever.

People from all around the world have enthusiastically joined the campaign and planted trees in their own communities. 

In the process, they have taken a stand for the environment, and proved that the story of humanity on Earth is not one of inexorable environmental exploitation and decline — but with will and purpose, can be a story of stewardship and protection.

To Plant a tree

1. Dig a hole at least twice the width of the root ball to allow the roots to spread out. Remove the tree from its container, carefully cut off broken roots, and slightly loosen the root ball.

2. Place the tree in the planting hole. Always lift the tree by the root ball and never by the trunk. Spread periphery roots outwards. Avoid planting the tree too deep. Make sure that the soil line of the young tree is higher than the surface of the surrounding hole.

3. Shovel some soil into the planting hole. Check the planting depth and adjust if needed. Confirm that the tree is straight. Fill the hole gently but firmly. Pat the soil around the base of the root ball.

4. It is not recommended to apply fertilizer at the time of planting. Water the seedling thoroughly with a slow stream of water to settle the soil. Do not stake the tree. The sooner the tree can stand alone, the sooner it will become strong.

5. Provide follow up care. Protect the tree from pests and diseases by removing plants nearby which are likely to affect it. Remove weeds as they will compete with tree roots for moisture and nutrients. Protect the tree from destruction by livestock.

6. If suitable, space trees well to avoid competition for air and soil nutrients, and to encourage the growth of branches. Watch out for drought conditions and provide water if needed, especially during the first few months. Watch out for yellowing of leaves. Always maintain good air circulation in the tree by pruning to avoid pests and other diseases.

The Next Step

The Next Step would be the protection against logging industry. We need to stop logging mining and oil industry to destroy the forests.
The land should be administered for life for those that plant the trees and care fore the trees if they wish to take care for the forest and land that is the property of the government.

February 2015

We are very pleased to announce that, to date, we register 13013063176 tree planting confirmations.

Here is a link with planting by country

http://www.plant-for-the-planet-billiontreecampaign.org/Getinvolved/SeeLatest.aspx

China

Cina’s Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts cover about one-tenth of the country’s land, but they’re responsible for a majority of the sand that inundates Beijing during gargantuan dust storms, making the city’s polluted air even more deadly.
Thanks to centuries of overgrazing, deforestation, and bad water management, the frequency and severity of those dust storms has been on the rise. But since the late 1970s, China has been working to stop the dust invasion by planting trees—billions of them—as part of a project called the Great Green Wall.
It’s one of the most aggressive environment-altering projects ever attempted, with a goal to plant 100 billion trees across 2,800 miles by 2050.
“Since its implementation, the program has improved vegetation, which decrease the intensity of dust storms,” study coauthor Minghong Tan a researcher at Beijing’s Institute of Geographic Sciences 
Only around 15 percent of trees planted on China’s dry lands since 1949 survive today, Cao Shixiong of Beijing Forestry University, told The Economist.
Brazil
Five hundred years ago, the Atlantic Forest of Brazil covered approximately 330 million acres (about twice the size of Texas), but today more than 85% of this forest has been cleared and what remains is highly fragmented (due to coastal development, urban expansion, agriculture, exotic plantations, ranching, and illegal logging).
How does the Nature Conservancy work in the Atlantic Forest? The Nature Conservancy and a team of local, international, public and private partners have launched an ambitious campaign to plant a billion trees by 2015. To accomplish this, TNC will:
  • -- Reforest degraded lands by planting one billion native trees
  • -- Create forest corridors to protect, connect and buffer forested areas
  • -- Establish and strengthen private and public protected areas
  • -- Promote legal incentives and conservation easements to secure protection of private land
  • -- Provide technical assistance for private landowners reforesting their lands
  • -- Restore or preserve 30 million acres of rainforest by 2015
The 1 Billion Trees initiative was an idea proposed by then South Australian Premier, Mike Rann.
Canada Ontario
Trees Ontario administers the Ontario government's 50 Million Tree Program, part of the United Nations Billion Tree Campaign. The United Nations' goal is to plant one billion trees worldwide each year. Ontario is committed to plant 50 million trees by 2025.
In 2010, Trees Ontario reached a milestone – 10 million trees planted since 2004. This achievement is significant considering the time and degree of planning necessary to develop the infrastructure to produce and then plant 10 million tree seedlings. 
Tree seed needs to be collected from the species and in the quantities necessary to meet the future demand. Nurseries must then plant and care for them until they grow into seedlings. The seedlings are finally lifted from the nursery beds, packaged, delivered to the landowner or planting agency and subsequently planted as part of various planting projects. 
Sometimes it can take up to 4 years for a seed to become a seedling ready for planting. The 2011 goal is to plant 3 million trees and to eventually support the planting of 10 million trees per year by 2015.
“Trees are the lungs of the earth – they absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. They help clean our air, restore our watersheds, provide wildlife habitat and buffer against the effects of climate change, “All of us have a role to play in protecting the environment so that we can ensure a sustainable ecosystem and the health of Ontarians now and for our future generations.”
Quotes


“It is the little things that citizens do. That’s what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.” Wangari Maathai

"We all share one planet and are one hummanity, there is no escaping this reality."
"The challenge for Africa" Professor Wangari Maathai

At first, I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realize I am fighting for humanity.
Chico Mendes, Brazilian Environmentalist
 
"If you are thinking a year ahead, sow a seed. 
If you are thinking ten years ahead, plant a tree." 
Chinese poet, 500 BC

"He who plants a tree loves others beside himself."
English proverb

"The best friend on Earth of man is the tree. When we use the tree respectfully and economically,
we have one of the greatest resources of the Earth."
Frank Lloyd Wright

"They are beautiful in their peace; they are wise in their silence. They will stand after we are dust.
They teach us, and we tend them."
Galeain ip Altiem MacDunelmor

"Though a tree grows so high, the falling leaves return to the root. "
Malay proverb
 
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
Greek proverb
 
"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree."
Martin Luther
 
"The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, 'In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!'"
John F. Kennedy
 
"Trees are poems that Earth writes upon the sky. We fell them down and turn them into paper, that we may record our emptiness."
Kahlil Gibran
 
"If what I say resonates with you, it is merely because we are both branches on the same tree."
W. B. Yeats

"A tree is our most intimate contact with nature."
George Nakashima, woodworker

"A tree uses what comes its way to nurture itself.  By sinking its roots deeply into the earth, by accepting the rain that flows towards it, by reaching out to the sun, the tree perfects its character and becomes great.  ...  Absorb, absorb, absorb. That is the secret of the tree."
Deng Ming-Dao,  Everyday Tao

"Plant trees.  They give us two of the most crucial elements for our survival: oxygen and books. "
A. Whitney Brown

"Each generation takes the Earth as trustees.  We ought to bequeath to posterity as many forests and
orchards as we have exhausted and consumed. "
J. Sterling Morton

"To me, nature is sacred; trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals."
Mikhail Gorbachev

"God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods.  But he cannot save them from fools. "
John Muir

"The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously the products of its life and activity; it affords protection to all beings."
Buddhist Sutra

"People who will not sustain trees will soon live in a world which cannot sustain people. "
Bryce Nelson
 
"Reforesting the earth is possible, given a human touch."
Sandra Postel and Lori Heise, Worldwatch Institute

"When you see the trees swaying to the tune of a gentle breeze... think of it as a dance in your honor."
Marjolein Bastin
 
"Plant trees, Lots of trees "
"An Inconvenient Truth" Al Gore

 "A tree is our most intimate contact with nature"
George Nakashima 
 
 "People who will not sustain trees will soon live in a world that will not sustain people"
Bryce Nelson
 
 "No shade tree? Blame not the sun, but yourself"
Chinese Proverb


Links

http://www.plantabillion.org/locations/united-states/

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/science-matters/2015/01/energy-shift-requires-shift-in-conversation/