Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, wants to break a record…and it’s not the world’s largest sandwich.
The record they want to break is an environmentalist’s dream. The residents of Uttar Pradesh want to plant the most trees in one day.
Over 800,000 people volunteered after officials gave out over one million saplings as part of a campaign to increase the size of India’s forests.
The Associated Press reported that, if they accomplish this goal, it will most certainly beat the Guinness World Record set by Pakistan in 2013 when they planted 847,275 trees!
Akhilesh Yadav, Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister, is hoping that planting a total of 50 million trees will not only improve air quality, but will spread awareness about environmental issues and reforesting.
“The world has realized that serious efforts are needed to reduce carbon emissions to mitigate the effcts of global climate change.” Yadav told the tree planters.
“Uttar Pradesh has made a beginning in this regard.”
The Indian government has allotted over $6.2 billion toward the effort of increasing India’s forest cover.
They are hoping to increase their forest size to 95 million hectares (235 million acres) by the year 2030 as they pledged to do at the 2015 Climate Change Summit in Paris.
Kudos to India’s government and citizens! Let’s all hope that more countries follow their amazing dedication to making our planet a better place to live for future generations.
