India Will Get 300,000 New Trees Through This Tree Planting Campaign

The tree planting campaign of MrBeast, a well-known YouTuber, has resulted in 21 million new plants being cultivated in Australia, China, Haiti, Nepal, Ireland, United Kingdom, United States, France, Madagascar, Brazil, Indonesia, Mozambique, and Canada.

Back in October last year, Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson announced his plan to raise around $20 million for his #TeamTrees campaign after his channel gained 20 million subscribers. Each dollar will be equivalent to one tree planted. The goal of #TeamTrees was reached in December last year, partly thanks to the participation of several YouTube stars.

The environmental organization Mr. Best partnered with, the Arbor Day Foundation, said that the tree planting will occur all the way through 2022. The first round of tree planting will take place in 2020 with California getting 100,000 new trees, Kenya has 350,000 for its Kijabe Forest, and the Cauvery River Basin in Southern India gets 400,000 trees.

The 100,000 new trees in California will replace some of those died in the 2018 wildfire. The catastrophic event took place in 2018 and wiped out over 1.8 million acres forest. The Camp Fire, which was part of the disaster, is California’s most destructive fire so far. The deadly event has drawn lots of attention to how the devastating effect of climate change, which plays part in making fire seasons worse than ever.

According to Mark Rober, another YouTuber, 20 million trees are far from enough to reverse the effect of climate change but that many will help end this decade with a strong message sent to policymakers and politicians. Plants absorb and store the carbon dioxide that fuels global warming. So it is about time we do something to save our planet.

The places where the trees are planted are also vital to how effective this campaign is. Reforestation in the areas that have suffered the loss of plants is the best while planting more trees where they do not naturally grow will actually have a negative impact on the environment.

Back in September, several environmental groups in India urged Leonardo DiCaprio to cease supporting an initiative that planned to plant trees in the Cauvery River Basin. The coalition of these groups explained that the new trees will actually dry up the rivulets and streams, thus having a devastating effect on the wildlife there.

When asked if The Arbor Day Foundation has any involvement with the Cauvery Calling, the controversial initiative in India, it said that the campaign was actually its partner in the country. The foundation said that they believed in the commitment of Cauvery Calling to plant the right trees, in the right places, and for a just reason, to increase clean water’s availability and the overall health of the soil, and ultimately make boost the wellbeing of the area.

In terms of helping the Earth coping the effect of climate change, ensuring that the trees live a long and healthy life is as important as planting them. To bring about the best effect, the trees need to survive at least for as long as the carbon dioxide they absorb would be in the planet’s atmosphere, which is around a century.

In 2015, some forest fires destroyed one of such attempts to counter the effect of carbon dioxide, so the effort needs to be extended beyond tree planting.