GGCA Gender and Climate Change Training Manual - Women's ...

iomass alone, and that carbon stored in forest
biomass, deadwood, litter and soil together
is roughly 50% more than the carbon in the
atmosphere.
Prof. Maathai recently stated that “natural
resources will provide a buffer from the effects of
climate change, and one of the most important
activities we can and should undertake is
to prioritize protecting and rehabilitating our
forests; in particular, the five forest mountain
ecosystems (in Kenya) that determine the flow
and volume of our rivers, our rainfall, and our
groundwater supplies.
“We know the science, we know the data
[behind global warming]” said Prof. Maathai.
“But what is really important is what we do.
Planting a tree is something that anybody can
do”.
Sources:
The Billion Tree Campaign website: http://www.unep.org/
billiontreecampaign/FactsFigures/QandA/index.asp
Xan Rice. (2006). “Nobel Laureate Urges World to Plant a
Billion Trees”. UK: The Guardian, 9 November.
Maathai, W. (2004). Nobel Prize speech.
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Africa’s greenhouse gas emissions
are negligible compared to those of the
industrialized world and the emerging
economic giants of China and India. But our
responsibility to act should not be equally
small. It is we who will pay the price for our
inaction. Many of us already are, and the
predictions of what is in store are sobering”.
Under the Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree
Campaign, individuals, children, youth and
community groups, schools, non-governmental
organizations, business and industry, farmers,
local authorities, and national governments are
urged to plant trees as a small but practical
step to combat what UNEP says is probably
the key challenge of the 21st century. Pledges
can be entered on the website: www.unep.
org/billiontreecampaign. Each pledge can be
anything from a single tree to 10 million trees.
Case study 2 / Module 5