The Billion Tree Campaign is Going Well

Each morning I go to look at the little walnut sapling that I brought back from the Auverne last autumn. Having survived being uprooted from the old tin bath in which it had germinated, the journey back to Wales wrapped in sacking, and being over-wintered in some very acid compost, which rotted away its few remaining roots, I finally planted it on the lawn as part of the recent gardening operations, where it now stands like an accusing finger.

This week - we are in late May - it put out its first tentative shoot, low down on what one day may be called a trunk. Well, walnuts are not the earliest of birds.

What is curious is that the shoot - completely formed with leaves - is so small that you almost need a magnifying glass to see it. Even on my twig like tree it is disproportionately miniature - like those infant arms that bud out of the mighty chest of Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Moreover, despite my daily coaxing the shoot shows no sign of actually getting any bigger. Other buds are bursting now; I wait with anxiety to see whether they will produce anything bigger. I do hope it grows - for I have pledged it as part of the 'Plant a Billion Trees' campaign. My (very little) bit to help save the planet.

I am glad to say however that the campaign is doing rather better than my walnut tree. The UN campaign to plant billion trees in 2007 has hit its target seven months early after an unprecedented response including that of Senegal which this week unveiled a pledge today to plant 20 million trees. The campaign, under the auspices of the UN's Environment Programme (UNEP), has now to turn its attention to turning those pledges into one billion actual plantings by the end of 2007.

The idea for the campaign was inspired by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, whose Green Belt Movement has planted more than 30 million trees in 12 countries in Africa since 1977. Clearly large organisations and nation states are likely to have the biggest impact but individuals planting trees in their own gardens can have an impact too. The campaign is open to all and individuals can pledge to plant just a single tree. See the website: www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign

In the latest move the UN's Refugee Agency, UNHCR, has pledged itself to plant 9 million trees a year in areas of human displacement where refugees cut and collect wood for cooking, to provide light, for construction and for natural medical ingredients and fodder, leading to rapid deforestation.

Posted by Fennie Somerville

FOOD FORCE - A VIDEO GAME FROM THE UNITED NATIONS

Need something to keep the children quiet on a wet Sunday that is also educational and may even help others? Well, how about a computer game that models getting humanitarian aid to victims of a country in crisis.

Produced by the United Nation's Food Agency - the World Food Programme - with assistance from companies such as Yahoo and Quicktime, the video game explores the problem of global hunger and the logistics of humanitarian aid work. It is designed to teach children something about the harsh reality of delivering aid in conflict zones such as Darfur in the Sudan, or Sri Lanka.

Called Food Force and targeted at children between the ages of 8 and 13, the game consists of six missions in which players join a crack team of emergency aid workers on a fictitious island called Sheylan.

Children are faced with a number of realistic challenges: piloting helicopters on reconnaissance missions, assembling nutritious ration packs on a tight budget, air-dropping food to remote villages, sourcing and purchasing food supplies, delivering truckloads of food through minefields and rebel-held territories, and using food to help people as they rebuild their lives.

Food Force was launched in 2005 and is available as a free internet download from www.food-force.com, from where it has been downloaded about 5 million times. There is an interesting mini-video trailer on the download site. The game file itself is quite large (227 MB - about 30 minutes on broadband they say) and there are versions for both PCs and Macs.

Posted by Fennie Somerville