World Economic Forum: Davos, launching the “one trillion trees” campaign

The “one trillion trees” campaign, 1t.org, an initiative aimed at planting a number of trees so huge it sounds unreal (10 to the 12th power, to be precise) across the world by 2030, to provide “nature-based solutions” to the problem of climate change, has been officially launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos today. It is a campaign that aims to bring together governments, the private sector, local communities, native populations and communities of faith. “Nobody is against trees”, the billionaire manager of Salesforce, Marc Benioff, a goodwill ambassador who is also proactively involved in the campaign, said at a press conference today. Yesterday, in his speech, Trump stated he endorses the campaign. Colombia undertook to plant 180 million trees by 2022, as part of a reforestation plan started in 2019. Colombia’s president Ivan Duque, who is also in Davos, explained the efforts that his country is making to defend its Amazonian assets (35% of the territory): not only will new trees be planted, but “better institutions have been created to fight deforestation and the criminal cartels that cause it”. “For us, trees are home, life, food, school”, explained Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim (in the photo), a geographer and activist, president of the association for native women and peoples of Chad, so this initiative is crucial for native populations across the world. However, Hindou asked for the native populations to be involved in the initiative: it is not all about planting trees, she explained, it is about “re-establishing an ecosystem and a harmony with nature, thus giving an identity back to those populations”.
Valentina Bombelli