No one can doubt the persuasive powers of Wangari Maathai, Nobel
peace prize-winner and 67-year-old former assistant minister of
the environment in Kenya. It is she who has coaxed the Mexican
army, Japanese geishas, French celebrities, 10,000 Malaysian
schools, the president of Turkmenistan and children in Rotherham
to roll up their sleeves, dig a hole and plant a tree. It was an
off-the-cuff remark of hers in 2006 that led to this far-flung
initiative. She was in the US accepting an award when a
businessman told her that his company was planning to plant a
million trees. Jokingly, Maathai, who has spent most of a
lifetime planting saplings, responded, â€śThatâ€™s great. But
what we really need is to plant one billion trees.â€ť The UN â€“
and the Green Belt Movement Maathai founded among African women
â€“ picked up the challenge. In just over a year, in one of the
largest mobilisations of people for a cause since the Asian
tsunami, 1.5bn trees have been planted in nearly 50 countries,
and a further billion mo