On the eve of the World Environment Day, PRAIS Foundation, the initiator of the National Planting Movement "Millions of People, Millions of Trees", announces the results of the third programme edition. Between its launch in September 2006 and May 2009, the movement registered a record number of plantings at the national level: over 38,000,000 trees and more than 11,000,000 bushes and plants. These results were possible due to the outstanding involvement of more than 500 organisations, 59,000 volunteers and 66,000 employees.

"The movement has received the international recognition of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and starting this year, "Millions of People, Millions of Trees" is conducted under the aegis of UNEP and its global programme "Plant for the Planet". This recognition marks our contribution to the UNEP – "One Billion Trees" campaign – which is a great honour for PRAIS Foundation and its partners alike", declared Silvia Bucur, President PRAIS Foundation.

The communication platform of the movement is the websitewww.milioanedecopaci.ro, which registered in the past three months an increase in the no. of visitors from Romania and 10 other countries, such as: Germany, USA, Italy, Spain, UK, Italy, France, Russia and Austria. In three years, PRAIS Corporate Communications volunteers conducted 25 direct information campaigns in 41 counties, addressing over 5,000 companies, institutions and non-governmental organisations.

The national planting movement is open to all companies, foundations, organisations and institutions in Romania. The Ministry of Environment and the National Environment Guard are the institutional partners of the movement. These results were also made possible by the great support offered since the launch by URSUS Breweries – founding member, Lafarge Romania and Smithfield Romania.

Since its very first edition, the national planting movement was nominated for the best environmental CSR programme by the International Public Relations Association (IPRA), as part of the international competition "IPRA Golden World Awards".

Every year, on World Environment Day, the most active foundations, schools, municipalities, companies, forestry authorities and other organisations which register the largest number of plantings are awarded the Millions of People, Millions of Trees trophy.

These days, PRAIS Foundation has completed a new stage of this movement: the national initiative "Your World? Clean!" www.lumeatacurata.ro. The project gathered 2,200 fourth-grade pupils and 103 teachers from 34 schools in Bucharest. In only 2 months, the pupils collected voluntarily, within their schools, as a result of their current consumption, more than 4,540 kg of paper, the equivalent of 57 cubic meters of paper, and 835 kg of plastic, the equivalent of 42 cubic meters, and created 500 artefacts made of recyclable materials, which they displayed in a school exhibition.

For more information:

Silvia Bucur
President PRAIS Foundation
Telephone: 40 21 317 53 39; 317 53 40,
Mobil: 0728 303 660
Fax: 40 21 316 81 90
E-mail: SilviaBucur@prais.ro