PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - The first ever Garden Route Plant-for-the-Planet Academy was recently hosted in Plettenberg Bay. "We were thrilled with the turnout of 120 learners from five of our local Bitou schools," said Jenny Lawrence of the Barefoot University Foundation, who arranged and co-facilitated this event alongside Kjell Kuhne, a German representative of the organisation.

From 1995 to 2002, Lawrence was instrumental in spearheading the campaign for sustainable development in the Garden Route. She has been invited by Plant-for-the-Planet to assist with the youth programme at the World Summit on Climate Change (COP 17) in Durban, which commences on November 28.

Plant-for-the-Planet is an international non-profit foundation launched in 2007 in Germany by Felix Finkbeiner, who was nine years old at the time. His teacher set an assignment to prepare a report about the issue of climate change. Whilst conducting his research he was inspired by the story of Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize laureate who had worked to plant over 30 million trees across Africa as part of her Green Belt Movement.

Finkbeiner suggested that the children of the world could plant one-million trees in every country on Earth. On March 28, 2007 the first tree was planted at his school, thus marking the official launch of Plant-for-the-Planet. After one year 150,000 trees had been planted.

In 2008 Finkbeiner was elected to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) children’s board during the International UNEP Children’s Conference in Norway, enabling him to reach a larger audience.

In September 2009, during the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the global campaign ’Stop Talking. Start Planting.’ was first initiated. This campaign aims to raise awareness about climate change amongst children and adults alike and encourages them to take positive action.

Attendees at the Plant-for-the-Planet Academy in Plett (at the Simunye Centre) on Friday, November 11 ranged in age from 9-18. Following an audiovisual presentation, the learners were divided into groups of ten to design action plans for each school. "These sessions revealed a high level of interest and involvement from the children of all ages. Since then, we have heard that many of the children are wearing their T-shirts every day and asking when they will receive further training," said Lawrence. She views this as an opportunity to engage children in a way that will inform them about serious climate change issues, without overwhelming them or causing undue alarm.

"Planting trees is a practical and fun way of raising environmental awareness. The interplay between the health and wellbeing of humanity and that of our forests, the lungs of the planet, is a fundamental truth that needs to be grasped," said Lawrence.
Lawrence hopes to receive funding, which will enable this valuable initiative to be spread widely within the Garden Route area next year. "The most effective way to ensure the sustainability of this project would be to train competent facilitators, including a single teacher from each school who would be willing to establish a Plant-for-the-Planet Club at every school," concluded Lawrence.

Further information is available on http://www.plant-for-the-planet.org. Garden Route schools wishing to participate are invited to make contact with Jenny Lawrence on 082 878 4762 in the new year.


Participants in the Plettenberg Bay Plant-for-the-Planet Academy with facilitator Jenny Lawrence.

ARTICLE: CANDICE LUDICK, KNYSNA-PLETT HERALD JOURNALIST