300 volunteers in Pakistan planted 541,176 mangrove trees by hand in a single day, setting the Guinness World Record for tree planting.
The volunteers, using no mechanical equipment, planted the mangroves in the Indus River Delta wetland ecosystem in the Southern Sindh Province of Pakistan, beating India in a friendly competition which seeks to preserve endangered forests and help temper the global warming effects of deforestation.
“This is a wonderful example of partnership between government, local communities and the private sector for a common cause, for conservation.” – Richard Garstang, head of WWF Pakistan Wetlands Program
The tree planting site, 150 kilometers southeast of Karachi, is a sanctuary of biodiversity, designated by Pakistan as a ‘Ramsar Site’, or Wetland of International Importance, in 2002. The trees were planted on the mudflats of the inter-tidal zone at an interval of just over 2 meters, in order for the young Red Mangroves to have plenty of room to spread their canopies as they grow.
WWF awarded Hameed Ullah Jan Afridi, Pakistan’s Environment Minister, the title Leaders of the Planet, which recognizes individuals making a significant personal contribution to sustainable development and conservation of the natural world.
Deforestation contributes to about 20% of all CO2 emissions, say scientists, and reducing deforestation is a key tactic in fighting rising global temperatures.
“Mangrove reestablishment strongly correlates with climate change adaptation, biodiversity conservation and improving community livelihoods.” – Anada Tiega, Secretary General of Ramsar Convention on Wetlands
The previous record for the most trees planted in a single day was 447,874, set by India.
Image: Ahd Jal at Flickr under CC License
About Derek Markham
When these people learn that a type of maggots reduce humanure to safe garden compost and chicken feed, when they find out poop, human or otherwise can be bio-gassed into useful bottled cooking fuel, when they see a solar cell, hooked to a battery, and a LED light, and realize the “Perpetual Power” at hand, when these people are taught that America was not “Sustainable” and died for that reason, they will flourish in in humble recognition of the limitations of nature and physics, live within the boundaries of “Sustainability” and repopulate the world with a smaller faster more communal and more intelligent sort of human being,in accordance with the Chinese model, and the heavy fisted Philistines as found one time in America will die away, unable to acquire enough calories for survival, even by cannibalism and other horrific events at the end of the Great Repuglican Depression but before the Nuclear waste accidents occurred. Fear these horrible creatures that still forage over the corpses, glowing wasts and offal of the dead society, A few are still alive, with corporatism in their hearts and exploitation and bullying in their souls! Kill them on sight, for the sake of mankind, and sleep peacefully knowing we are safe from them at last.