In perhaps one of the most inspiring climate justice stories, comes a young boy named Felix Finkbeiner, the founder of the Plant-for-the-Planet movement, which is a part of the Billion Tree Campaign. Following the UN, the objective of the Billion Tree Campaign is to encourage people, communities, organizations, business and industry, civil society and governments to collectively plant at least one billion trees worldwide each year. The idea for the campaign was inspired by Professor Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize laureate for 2004 and founder of Kenya's Green Belt Movement, which has planted more than 30 million trees in 12 African countries since 1977.
Young Finkbeiner, upon learning about Maathai's accomplishments in science class, decided that he too wanted to make a difference, and he enlisted the children of the world to take on the task of planting one million trees in each country of the world. By implementing Plant-for-the-Planet academies in various countries, children teach other children the importance of trees for the planet, and plant trees side by side, learning the proper techniques together.
Says Finkbeiner, "Each tree that we plant takes up 10 kg of CO2 every year, and each tree is a symbol for climate justice. We children are the majority on the planet, we can make a difference. We cannot forget that while one mosquito cannot do anything against a rhino, one thousand mosquitoes can make a rhino change its direction."
