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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 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 Seedling s. Nigeria: Tree Planting Campaign Gets a Billion Roots 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 {Link without Title} "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 {Link without Title} "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. {Link without Title} INITIATIVES SUPPORTED
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