Birthday Trees: a Ugandan teenager's way to replant forests
Ugandan teenager Leah Namugerwa marked her 15th birthday by planting 200 trees, then started Birthday Trees, inviting others to celebrate birthdays by planting trees.
One problem. Many solutions.
Forests and deforestation
How do people protect and regrow forests?
Different communities face the same problem and find different answers, shaped by their own resources, knowledge and context. No approach here is presented as the right one for everywhere.
Side by side
| Who | Where | How it started | Scale | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leah Namugerwa | Kampala, Uganda | For her 15th birthday in 2019, instead of a party, Namugerwa planted 200 trees and offered trees to others to plant on their own birthdays. | National | Documented |
| Jadav Payeng | Kokilamukh, Jorhat (Brahmaputra river islands, Assam), India | As a teenager in 1979 Payeng was given a few bamboo plants and began planting them on a bare sandbar in the Brahmaputra. | Regional | Documented |
| Nemonte Nenquimo | Waorani territory, Pastaza province (coordinates: Puyo, provincial capital), Ecuador | After Ecuador announced new oil concessions in 2018, she travelled between Waorani villages holding assemblies and talking with leaders about what the plans meant for their land. | Regional | Documented |
The teenager who began planting bamboo on a bare sandbar
Since 1979 Jadav Payeng has planted and tended trees on an eroded Brahmaputra sandbar in Assam, growing a forest now known as Molai.
Waorani communities map their forest and win a court case to keep oil out
Waorani leader Nemonte Nenquimo helped unite communities, map their territory and win a 2019 court ruling that protected about half a million acres of Amazon forest from an oil auction.
What can they learn from one another? Read the "Copy this" section of each story to compare materials, costs and risks.