Art of Living volunteers, in collaboration with the City of Mississauga, plan to plant 10 000 trees in Shelby Park in the next year. The project initiated last September is part of the global Art of Living project Mission Green Earth. The Shelby Woods is expected to become an urban forest by fall 2009.

As planting tree is considered one of the most effective ways of checking global warming, the Art of Living has been not only aggressively planting trees, but also encouraging the public to join in. This year, it launched a massive initiative christened ‘Mission Green Earth’ to encourage people to plant trees. The initiative, taken up in association with the United Nations Millennium Campaign (UNMC) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), envisages plantation of at least 100 million saplings between July 16, 2008 and July 2009 in different parts of the world.

This simple act of planting a tree is going to make a big difference to the global environment. Trees absorb and store the key greenhouse gas emitted by our cars and power plants, carbon dioxide (CO2), before it has a chance to reach the upper atmosphere where it can help trap heat around the Earth’s surface. Hence, it’s a sure-fire antidote to global warming. Trees also filter pollution from the air, recycle water and prevent soil loss.

The Art of Living has been promoting tree plantation for the last many years through its vast volunteer network. Tree plantation forms an integral part of its social intervention programme, 5H. Under this programme, millions of trees have been planted in thousands of villages in India. In 2005, the Art of Living distributed 100,000 plants in test tubes in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah during the World Environmental Week.