Slowing Climate Change with Trees in Wales and Africa
On Friday June 26 the communities of Lampeter in Wales and Bore in Kenya joined together to fight climate change by planting trees simultaneously in both locations with a live satellite link connecting both events. The aim of this unique event was to link the two communities to highlight how we can work together to take simple steps to slow global warming.
It was organised by Lampeter/Bore Community Carbon Link in partnership with the University of Wales Lampeter. Welsh and Kenyan school children helped to plant the trees. The Kenyan part of the operation was co-ordinated by Primate Handshake.org who take volunteers out to Africa to work on primate conservation projects.
Wales has the 12th highest per capita carbon footprint in the world so we have a particular responsibility to do what we can to reduce this. Kenya on the other hand has one of the lowest emission footprints and the irony is that it is poor communities such as Bore that are having to deal with the climatic changes that our, industrialised and carbon effluent way of life has created.
Trees remove carbon from the atmosphere and the Community Carbon Link aims to encourage schools, businesses and individuals in Lampeter to gradually reduce their footprint by sponsoring tree planting with the partner community in Kenya.
The tropical forests of Africa have a key role in keeping our climate cool and if we don’t conserve them we are likely to lose the battle against climate change. We have to find new ways to work with tropical forest communities to help them protect these critical ecosystems and the carbon that they store and this project is an example of how we can do this.
A positive by-product of the project is that it reinforced issues of global citizenship for local Welsh school children. The children had already raised money to purchase a wind-up laptop computer for their link school in Lesotho through work with the Primate Handshake organisation and it is hoped that further links will now be developed with the Kenyan community in the Bore too.
To find out more about the project visit the Community Carbon Link website
