India broke its own world record and planted 66 million trees in 12 hours, in an attempt to meet the agreements made at the Paris Climate Change Conference
1,5 million volunteers spent 12 hours, between 7 am and 7pm, to plant a massive number of tree saplings along the Narmada River, Madhya Pradesh state.
The new record was announced on Twitter, by the State Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
The previous record that they set was in 2016, when it planted more than 50 million trees in just one day, at several locations across the state of Uttar Pradesh.
Guinness World Records’ adjudicators were present and monitored the plantation; they are expected to confirm the new record in the following weeks.
At the Paris Climate Change Conference, India agreed to spend $6 billion to reforest 12% of its land and help fight the effects of climate change.
There are also other nations that are also undertaking tree-planting efforts to reduce deforestation and combat climate change. Moreover, at the end of 2016, 10 African nations promised to restore 31.7 million hectares of land, part of the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative.
At the other part of the world, in Australia, a team of engineers are planning to use drones to plant over 1 billion trees each year.
The mind behind this idea is Dr. Susan Graham, who helped build a drone that can scan the land, identify best places to grow trees, and then fire seeds into the soil.
Unfortunately, deforestation and forest degradation are two important issues that make up 17% of the world’s carbon emissions, which is more than the entire world’s transportation sector, as the United Nations reported.
Our planet loses 15 billion trees each year, and much of it is due to farmland that feeds the population; however, it is feared that this could be exacerbating climate change.
