From the leaf to the tree

The idea was conceived in December 2006 at a children's art contest, that kicked off a tree-planting campaign in Brazil, Benin, and Burundi. The TAKE-Esperanto of Wintzenheim-Colmar Association organized a worldwide children's art contest for Esperantists. The president of the association, Mr. Michel Basso, received more than 300 designs, which are then placed on that city's Christmas tree. Among the designs was one from a Japanese student who was not happy about the cutting of Christmas trees, in the face of the deforestation problem affecting several parts of the world.  
 
Touched by this, Mr. Basso decided to use the network of esperantists to start a tree-planting campaign. The association started by searching for locations to plant and received an allotment of 2,347 acres in the Brazilian savanna of Cerrado from the Institute 'Good Hope'. Agriculturists and professors from the University of Goias helped with the project, whose working language is Esperanto. In December, 483 trees of 19 different varieties were planted.

In early June 2008, the president of the TAKE association issued certificates to all the students at the Wintzenheim elementary school who had taken part in the contest, as a palpable symbol of their patronage. Sylvie received a guava tree, Lise adopted a custard-apple tree, Albert an ipê tree, Bastien a hancornia and Christiana a coffee tree. The association hopes to plant more trees in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Burundi all under the umbrella of the Billion Tree Campaign

by:
Nicolas Roquejeoffre,
journalist for the French regional newspaper DNA-Alsace

plantu-arbon.org