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As I mentioned in my blog on June 11th (Protecting the Rainforests), there is a great buzz at the moment about REDD – Reducing Emissions (of CO2 ) from Deforestation and Degradation. This is great, and getting something sorted on this before the Copenhagen Conference at the end of 2009 is going to be crucial.

But people are weird. Just because policy-makers are focused for the first time on reducing emissions from cutting down existing trees doesn’t mean that taking up emissions from planting new trees has suddenly become completely irrelevant! Or boring even.

OK, so there are indeed a number of dodgy tree-planting schemes being done as carbon offsets, and it is now widely accepted that forestry-based offsets need to be treated with a great deal of caution. But that absolutely doesn’t mean that all tree-planting has ceased to be important.

I was powerfully reminded of this last week when the official report of the Billion Tree Campaign dropped through my letterbox. If anyone reading this piece RIGHT NOW is feeling a little bit depressed, then RIGHT NOW you should check this out http://www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign.

It’s an astonishing story. Back in 2005, the wonderful Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize (the first environmentalist ever to win) started campaigning around the idea of planting a billion trees. This was taken up by UNEP and a constellation of organisations all around the world, and duly launched in November 2006. I must say, I did wonder at the ambition level – that’s one hell of a lot of people out there planting one hell of a lot of trees.

I needn’t have worried. Since the launch, not just one billion, not just one and half billion, but more than two billion trees have been planted!

The overall impact of this must be extraordinary – in terms of biodiversity, soil protection, watershed management, sustainable livelihoods and so on. And that doesn’t even include the CO₂ benefits: depending on the location and size of its trees, one hectare of forest can absorb approximately six tonnes of CO₂ a year.

The Report is stuffed full of brilliant case studies, drawn from all over the world, involving every sector and every conceivable kind of organisation – particularly young people.

You can just feel the spirit of Wangari Maathai behind all of this. She was over in the UK a month ago to present the Awards of the annual Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy – itself an amazing organisation (of which – to declare an interest – I’m a Trustee) with its own amazing portfolio of inspirational award winners – this year from Ethiopia, Tanzania, India, Uganda, Brazil and China, as well as Mid Wales, Cornwall, Sussex, Yorkshire, Ayrshire and Oxford!

So if the Billion Trees haven’t done it for you, then check them out too at www.ashdenawards.org

“No one can attend an event like the Ashden Awards and fail to be inspired……these Awards have told us how to illuminate the path to a sustainable future together”

(Al Gore)