Ecuador plants its way to tree-based Guinness Record

O

n Saturday, in often sweltering heat, more than 44,000 people in Ecuador reportedly sowed their way into the Guinness Book of World Records by planting 647,250 trees of over 200 species in one day.

Planting trees in Ecuador - an
example we should all follow.

The effort was organized by the Ecuadoran government under an initiative called “Siembratón.”

Ecuador’s record was set based on the number of species of trees planted. “There is no record in history of similar events involving over 150 species,” a Guinness Records adjudicator told AFP.

Volunteers reportedly sowed an estimated 216 species of trees across some 2,000 hectares of land in 150 locations ranging from the Pacific coastal region to the Amazonian basin to the high Andean mountains. The diverse climatic terrain likely helped in the small country plant so many different species. Trees included alder, wild cherry, willow, cedar, rosemary, lignum vitae, myrtle, podocarpus, carob, cholan, laurel silk guarando, eugenia, mahogany, paper tree, walnut, fig tree and arabisco.

Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s president, participated by planting a tree in the parish of Pifo, in the capital of Quito. “Today Ecuador is making history again,” he said in a press release. “We are a green country.”

Read the ClimateProgress story - “What Every Country Can Learn From Ecuador”.