30 March 2009: The UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) “Billion Tree Campaign,” a campaign to plant trees around the globe, recently announced that, with the planting of over 300 million trees in Turkey in 2008, the initiative has resulted in the planting of over three billion trees.

The campaign was launched in 2006 by UNEP and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) as a response to the threat of global warming and other sustainability challenges related to biodiversity loss and water supply. Given this recent success, the initiative’s new target is to promote the planting of seven billion trees by December 2009. [UNEP Press Release]