Dubai: Every year millions of hectares of land are degraded and lost due to a variety of man-made factors. This has a detrimental impact on the climate and is one of the root causes of global warming.
Our youth organisation, Green Hope UAE, has been combatting land degradation and mitigating climate change for the past two years. One of our campaign themes revolve around tree planting.
Trees absorb carbon dioxide, release oxygen, bind the soil and prevent erosion and stabilise the water level, thus improving the fertility of our land. It is one of the most effective ways of combatting land degradation, reducing the carbon footprint and mitigating climate change.
We conducted a two-day tree planting campaign in Dubai on February 27 and 28, wherein we planted over 200 trees around Dubai. We chose different species such as Delonix Rega, Tabebuia, Pongamia and Neem, which can survive and thrive in our harsh weather conditions.
It was hard work, where in our members , some as young eight years old, dug pits, planted the saplings, filled the holes with compost and then watered them. We also put small fences around the saplings for protection and support.
Eight-year-old member Rashmika felt that, “patting in the soil around the tree’s roots is quite an amazing feeling” and she was happy that she was going green.
Prateek, a veteran Green Hope UAE campaigner, said: “We have planted over 3,000 trees in the past couple of years and our goal is to plant a million trees by the time we are adults.”
We, the youth, have a determining role to play in mitigating climate change and this campaign is one of the many steps that we will undertake to reduce the carbon footprint of our planet.
— The reader is founder of Green Hope UAE based in Dubai.
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