Saturday, 13 September 2014

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #296 Plant a Tree

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #296 Plant a Tree


Where I live used to be a densely planted area with a huge number of trees, both native and European. We couldn’t even see into our neighbours property for trees and vegetation. Twenty years on and the trees are mostly gone as development takes over, with house blocks now consisting of three or four townhouses where once there was a single home. As population grows, new housing developments are popping up everywhere, with all the vegetation bulldozed to make way for concrete jungles with not a tree in site. Brazil and Indonesia are countries with high profiles for chopping down their rainforests to make way for industry, particularly the palm oil industry, which we all use in one way or another. These are to name only a few examples. None of us are guiltless in the destruction of forests worldwide – we all use products that come from that destruction.
Let’s counteract our destructive behaviour by planting a tree. Plant one tree for every person in your household. In Australia that would be 23 million trees – there would be so many more in other countries worldwide. If you don’t have your own property on which to plant a tree, or enough space, join a tree planting project in your area. Search the Internet for projects in which you can participate. If you simply cannot physically plant a tree yourself, donate to a tree planting project such as Carbon Neutral at http://www.carbonneutral.com.au/individuals/plant-a-tree.html or The Nature Conservancy at http://www.plantabillion.org/. Get your relatives and friends involved and if you have aged parents who cannot participate, plant a tree on their behalf.
The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago, so don’t delay – plant one today.

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