science

Trillion Tree Campaign

Trillion Tree Campaign is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Trillion Tree Campaign rather than just read about it. In short: The Trillion Tree Campaign is a project which aims to plant one trillion trees worldwide. It seeks to repopulate the world's trees and combat climate change as a nature-based solution.

Key takeaways

Trillion Tree Campaign belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Trillion Tree Campaign to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Trillion Tree Campaign from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Trillion Tree Campaign is a project which aims to plant one trillion trees worldwide. It seeks to repopulate the world's trees and combat climate change as a nature-based solution. The project was launched at PlantAhead 2018 in Monaco by Plant-for-the-Planet. In the fall of 2018, the project's official website was published in order to register, monitor, and donate trees to reforestation projects around the world. The campaign is a continuation of the activities of the earlier Billion Tree Campaign, instigated by Wangari Maathai, who founded the Green Belt Movement in Africa in 1977. As of 30 May 2021, 164 restoration projects participate in the campaign and 13.96 billion (1.396% of the goal) trees have been planted worldwide.

History

Billion Tree Campaign The Green Belt Movement began its activity in Africa in 1977, eventually planting more than 30 million trees. The Billion Tree Campaign was inspired by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement. When an executive in the United States told Maathai their corporation was planning to plant a million trees, her response was: "That's great, but what we really need is to plant a billion trees." The project was launched in 2006 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) under the patronage of Prince Albert II of Monaco and the World Agroforestry Centre-ICRAF as a response to the challenges of climate change, as well as to a wider array of sustainability challenges from water supply to biodiversity loss, and achieved the initial target of planting a billion trees in 2007. The billionth tree, commonly known as an African olive, was planted in Ethiopia in November 2007. In 2008, the campaign's objective was raised to 7 billion trees, a goal which was surpassed three months before its target of the climate change conference that was held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009. The 2-billionth tree took root as part of the United Nations World Food Programme agroforestry initiative. The campaign's target was then raised to seven billion trees. In 2009, UNEP mobilized action across the globe through the "Twitter for Trees" campaign. UNEP pledged to plant one tree to feed into the Billion Tree Campaign for every follower who joined from 5 May 2009 to World Environment Day on 5 June 2009. The campaign was a success, with 10,300 people following the page by World Environment Day. The World Organization of the Scout Movement also planted trees under the campaign, in line with its mandate to study and protect nature across several countries. United Nations Peacekeeping missions also joined the campaign and planted trees within their field missions in East Timor, Ivory Coast, Darfur, Lebanon, Haiti, Congo, and Liberia, among others.

After the campaign Felix Finkbeiner addressed the United Nations in a speech to open the International Year of Forests 2011, saying: "It is now time that we work together. We combine our forces, old and young, rich and poor; and together, we can plant a trillion trees. We can start the Trillion Tree Campaign." In December 2011, after more than 12 billion trees had been planted, UNEP formally handed management of the program to the youth-led not-for-profit Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation (an organisation that had been participating in the Billion Tree Campaign since 2007), based in Tutzing, Germany. Momentum has since continued, with 40,000 young ambassadors spreading the message in over 100 countries. In 2015, researcher Tom Crowther found that about 3 trillion trees exist in the world and later it was also estimated that planting 1.2 trillion more trees would counteract 10 years of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. In 2017, Pakistan's Billion Tree Tsunami restored 350,000 hectares of forests. On 9 March 2018, the Trillion Tree Declaration was signed at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. Signatories include Prince Albert II of Monaco, Gyalwang Drukpa, Patricia Espinosa in collaboration with the WWF, WCS, and BirdLife International. In September 2019, the Plant-for-the-Planet app was released under an open-source license. It allowed users to register planted trees or to plant trees by donating to different tree-planting organizations around the world. The foundation does not take any commissions for donations made through the campaign.

One Trillion Tree initiative The 2020 World Economic Forum, held in Davos, announced the creation of the One Trillion Tree initiative platform for governments, businesses, and civil society to provide support to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2020–2030), led by UNEP and FAO. Forum participant Donald Trump, then-president of the United States, announced that the government of the U.S. would commit to the initiative.

Principles Reducing fossil fuel emissions Conserving existing ecosystems Restoration must be socially and ecologically responsible

By country

China

In the years 2011—2022, China restored more than 70 million hectares (700,000 km2) of forests. The nation committed to plant and conserve 70 billion trees by the year 2030 as part of the Trillion Tree Campaign.

The United States has pledged to plant, grow, and restore around 51 billion trees by the year 2030. Currently, forests in the country absorb 15% of its carbon emissions. This can rise to 27% with responsible reforestation.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Trillion Tree Campaign

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Trillion Tree Campaign claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Trillion Tree Campaign before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Trillion Tree Campaign ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Trillion Tree Campaign

In research: Trillion Tree Campaign appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Trillion Tree Campaign in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Trillion Tree Campaign is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Afforestation, Forestry initiatives, Projects established in 2006, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Trillion Tree Campaign outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Trillion Tree Campaign in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Trillion Tree Campaign means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Trillion Tree Campaign out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Trillion Tree Campaign in simple terms?

The Trillion Tree Campaign is a project which aims to plant one trillion trees worldwide. It seeks to repopulate the world's trees and combat climate change as a nature-based solution.

Why does Trillion Tree Campaign matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Trillion Tree Campaign?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Trillion Tree Campaign.