The Greening Belize Initiative - also known as the million tree initiative - was gaining momentum today in San Ignacio. That's where the Forestry Department held a meeting with partners to come up with a plan and a path to plant a million trees. The Deputy Chief Forest Officer told us more:
John Pinelo Jr., Deputy Chief Forest Officer
"This was an idea brought out of cabinet by the PM to plant a million trees over a period of five years. And so what we have done is we have collaborated with all partners, and we're having a meeting here with the NGO partners, academia and the long term concessionaires, and other people involved in planting so that we can launch the project and start recording what we're doing with the planting. There are many restoration and reforestation activities going on in the country."
"We need to record them and start accumulating the data in our databases so we know what's going on. So what we have done here is bring everybody together so we can discuss the idea and get some pledges from people so we can start doing this activity. This will be something that the department will be leading for the next five years, and it will be the biggest project for us to reforest and, repopulate, a major part of the country."
"We're prioritizing areas that are degraded. And so it will be a number of different trees. We have a huge campaign program that will be launched, to promote this nationally. We were doing a pilot project in the Belize River Valley where we will be paying people to plant trees and maintain them."
"It is a small pilot project to see how it works. If that works out, then we will try and launch it around the country."
"And we're also developing an app, greening the trees up, where if you plant the tree, you can go and take a picture. You, register it with us. And then we recorded as one more tree added to that million number."
"It's not something that is temporary. It is definitely long term and is here to stay. And it will stay in the forest department because we're the one leading it."
