Page 73 - EarthHeroes

Gregor stepped aside with the spade. Felix smiled at his friend, then knelt and carefully put the little crab apple tree into the freshly dug hole and pushed
the damp earth around its roots, patting it until it was firm. He stood up and carefully tipped the watering can to soak the ground and settle the tree in place. His classmates crowded around him, clapping and cheering while journalists took photos.
It was March 2007 and nine-year-old Felix Finkbeiner was planting a tree outside his school near Munich, Germany. Eight weeks earlier, he had given a presentation entitled ‘The End of Polar Bears’ after his teacher asked the class to research climate change following a spell of unusually warm winter weather. On the Internet, Felix learned about the greenhouse effect, and how emissions of carbon dioxide, or CO2, from cars, aeroplanes, houses, factories and power plants are causing the atmosphere to warm and Arctic ice sheets to melt, endangering the polar bears that live there. These had been Felix’s favourite animals ever since he was five, when he was given a polar bear toy.
But Felix also discovered how trees use CO2 to grow, with each one storing
on average 10 kilograms of carbon. He read about Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai – known as Mama Miti, or ‘Mother of Trees’ – who led a group of women who planted 30 million trees in Kenya and East Africa over a period of 30 years to protect their environment and who, with the support of the United Nations, or UN, had just launched a ‘Billion Tree Campaign’. Felix felt excited – perhaps he and children like him could plant trees too.
In his class presentation, Felix explained the greenhouse effect and the positive impact of trees. At the end, he declared that children should plant a million
trees in every country on the planet. His classmates loved the idea, so his teacher arranged for Felix to give the talk to other class representatives and the headteacher. Soon the school’s first tree was in the ground. News of their project
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