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Nobel Laureate Professor Wangari Maathai with President Barack Obama when he was US Senator Obama. The Campaign, which is under the patronage of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Kenyan Green Belt Movement founder Professor Wangari Maathai and His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco, has set a new ambitious target of 7 billion trees to be planted by the UN Climate Change Conference that will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009. Photo taken in August 2006 by Fredrick Onyango from Nairobi, Kenya.

The Billion Tree Campaign, spearheaded by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), was unveiled in 2006 as one response to the threat of global warming, as well as to the wider sustainability challenges from water supplies to biodiversity loss. 

According to  the Turkish Ambassador to Kenya, Mr. S. Levent Sahinkaya,  “A total of 305,362,000 trees were planted by the Turkish Government and Turkish civil society in the year 2008. We believe that investing in our environment is investing in our future, and we consider the planting of over  300  million  trees as a marvelous gift to our children and to the generations  to come. The Turkish Government will continue investing in the environment and is committed   to the creation of an environment-friendly economy.”

Turkey has had an impressive tree-planting record since the launch of the campaign, planting over 400 million trees in 2007. With slightly over 700 million trees planted to date, Turkey now attains second position in the list of top 10 countries in the Campaign’s roll of honour. The leading country remains Ethiopia with 725 million trees planted.

Meanwhile, the PRAIS Foundation, an organization in Romania, in partnership with the Romanian Ministry of Environment and the National Environmental Guard and other partners, has confirmed that they have planted over 11 million trees through its national tree-planting movement ‘Millions of People, Millions of Trees.’

“The PRAIS Foundation is very proud that the movement is formally recognized by UNEP, and has become part of the Plant for Planet global initiative,” said Silvia Bucur, the President of the PRAIS Foundation.

Roll of Honour: Top Tree Planting Countries

1. Ethiopia - 725,945,094
2. Turkey - 707,540,533
3. Mexico - 472,404,266
4. Kenya - 139,893,668
5. Cuba - 137,476,771
6. Indonesia - 100,335,946
7. India - 84,027,466
8. China - 53,950,418
9. Rwanda - 50,051,007
10. Republic of Korea - 46,723,157
11. Peru - 46,555,894

In total, 3,071,704,993, trees have been planted around the world. So far, another 1,578,796,459 trees have been pledged and have yet to be planted.

In a call to action, UNEP is making an appeal to UN peacekeeping missions and the armed forces of the world to also join in the Campaign by planting trees in areas where they operate.

UNEP is further inviting all people, communities, business and industry, civil society organizations and Governments to join this global tree-planting initiative by registering tree-planting commitments on the campaign’s website --  www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign.