Power plant

Science World, Feb 18, 2008 by Jennifer Cutraro

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It was an ambitious goal: Plant 1 billion trees around the world in one year. But that's just what the United Nations' "Plant for the Planet" project urged people to do where forests have been cut down for farming or firewood. The project met and exceeded its goal for 2007, with Ethiopia, Mexico, and Turkey leading the tree-planting drive.

Projects like this play an important conservation role, says plant ecologist Peter White of the University of North Carolina. Trees prevent soil from washing away when it rains and create new habitats for species that live in the forest, he says.

TOP COUNTRIES PARTICIPATING IN THE BILLION-TREE PROJECT

Many developing countries have answered the United Nations' call to help the environment by planting trees. Added together, how do the tree-planting efforts of the other countries on the graph stack up with Ethiopia's?

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