When the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Agroforestry Centre launched the Billion Tree Campaign at the Climate Convention meeting in Nairobi in 2006, some wondered whether the target was too ambitious. They needn’t have worried. Within 18 months, the campaign had encouraged the planting of over 2 billion trees.

“Having exceeded every target that has been set for the campaign,” says Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director, “we are now calling on individuals, communities, business and industry, civil society organizations and governments to evolve this initiative onto a new and even higher level.” The aim now is to plant 7 billion trees – more than one for every person alive – before the crucial climate change conference in Copenhagen in 2009.

Planting trees is one of the most costeffective ways of addressing climate change, as trees and forests can absorb carbon dioxide, one of the key greenhouse gases leading to global warming. However, trees are also important for other reasons, as Dennis Garrity, the World Agroforestry Centre’s Director General, points out. “The Billion Tree Campaign has not only helped to mobilize millions of people to respond to the challenges of climate change,” he says, “it has also opened the door, especially for the rural poor, to benefit from the valuable products and services that trees provide.”

The campaign, whose patrons are Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, the founder of Kenya’s Green Belt Movement, and Prince Albert II of Monaco, has stimulated tree-planting in over 150 countries. Heads of state, big business, local authorities, aid agencies, community and faith groups – all have lent their support in one way or another. Besides helping to tackle global warming, the campaign has generated significant interest in places recovering from conflict and disasters, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia and Somalia. As Wangari Maathai puts it, “when we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and the seeds of hope.”

World Agroforestry Centre. 2008. Transforming Lives and Landscapes. Strategy 2008-2015. Nairobi: World Agroforestry Centre. http://worldagroforestry.org/af1/downloads/publications/PDFs/B15732/pdf