KENYA/FILE: Kenya Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai set to reach 'Billion Tree Campaign' some seven months ahead of schedule

Record ID: 361585

  • Title: KENYA/FILE: Kenya Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai set to reach 'Billion Tree Campaign' some seven months ahead of schedule
  • Date: 29th May 2007
  • Summary: (AD1) NAIROBI, KENYA (FILE - DECEMBER, 1998) (REUTERS) MATHAAI PREPARING TO PLANT TREES MATHAAI AND OTHERS CONFRONTING ARMED GUARDS ARMED GUARDS HECKLING MAATHAI ARMED GUARDS THREATENING MATHAAI
  • Embargoed: 13th June 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Nature / Environment,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA3SD3JTKBUFLWQYZMTSR4PRA5P
  • Story Text: A promise to plant a billion trees as one unique response to the global climate change challenge has been met, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) announced yesterday (May 22) during a press conference held at its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya.
    Inspired by 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Wangari Maathai, the idea for the 'Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign' was launched in October 2006 during the climate change convention that was held in Nairobi.
    "And I would like to encourage people in every nation if you have pledged, get together, form networks and remind each other how far have you gone with your commitment so that we can encourage each other to reach the goal where we have set for ourselves," Mathaai urged.
    The five month-old campaign has surpassed its initial goal some seven months ahead of schedule after many countries and individuals signed the online pledge.
    "We now have one billion twelve million something odd pledges registered as of I think it was the end of last week, and infact it was the pledge by the government of Senegal that took us over the one billion mark," said Mr. Achim Steiner, the current Executive Director of UNEP.
    Getting people to fulfil their pledges in time is Maathai's new goal.
    "How wonderful it will be if on the 31st of December 2007 we can always say we can all say we completed the pledge by May we had planted a billion trees. I hope by October we should be almost anniversary of when we pledged and by the end of the year, by December, we shall be saying we are so many millions of years, millions of trees beyond the billion," Mathaai concluded.
    Professor Wangari Maathai has served as the coordinator of Kenya's Greenbelt Movement, the most successful tree planting and women's empowerment program in Africa. She was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctoral degree and continued to beat the odds when she became the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.
    Maathai was repeatedly beaten and imprisoned for her efforts to preserve Kenya's public land and natural forests. She went on to become a government minister and international icon for environmentalists and womens' rights activists.
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