St. Andrew’s School students and teachers planting trees at Berakas Forest Reserve

 

|     Achong Tanjong     |

BRUNEI yesterday joined thousands of young people in creating a global ‘Green Wave’ to celebrate the International Day for Biodiversity.

More than 100 students from 17 selected secondary schools together with staff and officers from the Forestry Department took part in mass tree planting activity.

About 200 trees namely Penaga Laut (Calophyllum inophyllum) and Ru Laut (Casurina Equistifolia) were planted at the Berakas Forest Reserve yesterday.

This marked the sixth year of Brunei joining the Green Wave activity.

Trees are planted all over the world at 10am local time from May 22 to 23 this year as part of the activity.

All around the world, students, teachers, government employees, banks, private sectors and NGOs host and participate in the special tree planting celebrations to increase awareness about biodiversity.

The Green Wave is a project designed to support the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the world’s international treaty that promotes conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits derived from genetic resources.

The project aims to help raise awareness and educate young people – tomorrow’s leaders and citizens – on the loss of biodiversity that’s taking place across the world and the need to take action to preserve life on Earth.

The Green Wave also represents a fantastic chain of human solidarity around the epitome of life – trees – between the children of today and the responsible citizens of tomorrow. It was launched by the German Minister of Environment in Bonn in May 2008 during the International Day for Biological Diversity.

The Green Wave first started as a simple and small idea however since then it has grown and taken roots across the globe and helped to spread awareness on Earth’s biodiversity and the need for all of us to take action to halt its loss and to cherish and nurture the diversity of life.

This year, the Green Wave focuses on the theme Biodiversity for Sustainable Development. This theme reflects the importance of efforts made to establish a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the UN’s post-2015 development agenda for the period of 2015–2030 and the relevance of biodiversity for the achievement of sustainable development.

The selection of the theme also underlines the adoption of the Gangwon Declaration at the 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Globally, the Green Wave is also in supporting tree planting initiative such as UNEP Billion Tree Campaign.