UNITED NATIONS - An ambitious United Nations plan to oversee the planting of one billion trees worldwide - including 50 million in Canada - moved ahead Tuesday despite mounting criticism from arguably unexpected quarters.
Officials at the Nairobi headquarters of the UN's environment wing declared that groups and governments around the world have pledged to exceed the goal - and said the initiative will help fight climate change and poverty.
"People talk too much.
We are no longer talking; we are working," said Kenya's Wangari Maathai, whose work as a "green" activist won her the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.
UN Environment Program chief Achim Steiner said the pledges represent a "billion statements" by people worldwide who are saying "time has run out for debating."
Monaco's Prince Albert II is among other international figures who've lent their names to the overall UN effort, while actress Daryl Hannah is backing the planting drive in Canada.
But among the rising number of critics are activists and scientists who share the UN's premise that global warming is a fact - but say the "Billion Tree" campaign risks causing more harm that good.
"You can't just say, 'There's a billion extra trees; it's automatically a good for the environment,'" said Kevin Smith, author of The Carbon Neutral Myth, a newly released report by Amsterdam-based Carbon Trade Watch. "You have to work out the local context, where you're planting them, and what type of trees you're planting.
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He told of a planting scheme in Uganda that resulted in local farmers being thrown off their land.
More widely known is the case of eucalyptus plantations in Brazil that, says Smith, are a "disaster for local biodiversity," and absorb so much water they "deplete people's water resources."
While Smith is a strong supporter of the premise man-produced "greenhouse gasses" have caused or accelerated global warming, his report says there is a "huge degree in variation in estimates of how much (carbon dioxide) trees are capable of absorbing.
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The 80-page report also cites a recent study by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Stanford, Calif., which concluded most forests do not have any overall impact on global temperature because of the additional heat trees in temperate regions absorb.
"The idea that you can go out and plant a tree and help reverse global warming is an appealing, feel-good thing," said Ken Caldeira, a co-author of the Carnegie study.
"To plant forests to mitigate climate change outside the tropics is a waste of time."
Launched at a major UN climate meeting in November, the Billion Tree campaign had by Tuesday recorded 1,013,331,365 pledges to plant. Of these, a little more than 14 million were already in the ground, the UN said.
"There were many people around the world asking, 'What can I do about (climate change) and Wangari Maathai said let's get people planting trees," recounted UNEP spokesman Nick Nuttall. "This was essentially the empowerment of people ..
. and people are already sending in videos and pictures to demonstrate that they have done it."
Environment Canada said Tuesday it had made no pledges on behalf of the Canadian government, but a Canadian environmentalist group called Our World Clean Air Forest Initiative has told the UN it wants to be a campaign partner.
"Our pledge of 50 million trees will be planted in Canadian cities and schools over the next decade," said Randolph Lee, spokesman for the organization.
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