KIDS ARE RENEWING THE PLANET WITH TREES NOW

Every child represents renewal. But, at the tender age of 9, Felix Finkbeiner, inspired by a 4th grade school project, took on the task of renewing our planet, with a mission to plant a trillion trees.While it seems like an over-the-top childhood fantasy, Finkbeiner got to work planting. He started with a goal of planting 1 million trees -- and even that seemed overly ambitious for a kid. But his seeds not only grew into trees, they multiplied, becoming a global movement to fight climate change.

By the time Finkbeiner reached age 13, Germany had planted its millionth tree. He was invited to deliver a speech at the UN General Assembly, and he then launched Plant-for-the-Planet, an organization with a mission to save the planet with trees. The UN also handed over stewardship of its Billion Tree campaign to the Plant for the Planet.

Finkbeiner has done a Herculean job in recruiting youth to the climate change movement. Now, at age 19, he leads an army of 55,000 “climate justice ambassadors,” who have been trained as  activists and dispatched to work in their home communities. Most are between 9 and 12 years old.

“For most adults, it’s an academic question. For many of us children, it’s a question of survival,” Finkbeiner said.

Today, 10 years after he planted his first sapling, Plant for the Planet, together with the UN’s Billion Tree campaign, has planted more than 14 billion trees in more than 130 nations. That’s over 150 trees for every person on the Earth.

Plant for the Planet also inspired the first scientific, full-scale global tree count and is supporting NASA in an ongoing study of forests.

“If we follow the scientists and we act and in 20 years find out that they were wrong, we didn’t do any mistakes,” Finkbeiner told an Urban Futures conference in Austria last year. “But if we follow the skeptics and in 20 years find out that they were wrong, it will be too late to save our future.”

One of the largest projects now is a reforestation effort underway on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The group built a nursery that contains 300,000 seedlings of native trees and plans ultimately to plant 10 million trees by 2020.

A study, published in Nature (2015), found that the Earth has 3 trillion trees. It is estimated that there were twice as many trees 12,000 years ago, before agriculture & logging began to clear them.  About 10 billion trees are lost annually.

One trillion new trees could absorb an additional 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year

Finkbeiner has already proven he is wise beyond his years. And he’s only just begun. He is currently a student at the University of London School of Oriental & African Studies.

Read more about Beautiful Renewal in A Most Beautiful Place For Renewal Now, Beautiful Ecosystem Renewal Thanks to Wolves, Eggs Are The Art of Renewal Now, Art Inspires Renewal Now and Land & Life Renewed By Beavers Now.

And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact Daily Fix posts.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: by Ivy Dawned. “Reaching for the blossom.”
2. Image: by Benno Kraehahn. Felix Finkbeiner, founder of Plant for the Planet. Courtesy of Plant for the Planet.
3. Image: by broombesoom. “Wild Cherry Blossoms.”
4. Image: Felix Finkbeiner, founder of Plant for the Planet. Courtesy of Plant for the Planet.
5. Image: Planting in Timbou, Togo. Courtesy of Plant for the Planet.
6. Image: Planting in Kempten, Germany. Courtesy of Plant for the Planet.
7. Image: by Ed Suominen. “Central Washington Landscape.”
8. Image: by James Mann. “Point Wolfe River.”
9. Image: by Srijan Mathur. Untitled.
10. Image: by Chris Klink. “Treetops.”
11. Image: by Richard Hurd. “Spring day at Ho-nee-um Pond.”
12. Image: by Karen Roe. “Chippenham Park Gardens.”
13. Image: Paul Pitman. “Bluebells near Sevenoaks.”
14. Image: by BN App - Download now!
15. Image: by ukgardenphotos. “Bluebells in Dockey Wood, Hertfordshire, UK | The Flowering English Countryside.”