"Tree by Tree" – that was NIKIN motto right from the start. And now, just under 3½ years later, a few planted trees have already grown into half a million. Thanks in large part to your help, we have reached another incredible milestone!
"Tree by Tree" – that was NIKIN motto right from the start. And now, just under 3½ years later, a few planted trees have already grown into half a million. Thanks in large part to your help, we have reached another incredible milestone!
A single planted Tree does not Tree the world overnight. But half a million trees planted over a period of more than 3½ years makes a real difference. And that's exactly what we've achieved now. We've broken the half-million mark and we're proud to have made the world a little greener by planting so many trees. But we're not thinking about stopping yet – on the contrary, we're already aiming for a million!
The 500,000th Tree planted Tree Lenzburg
Reaching 500,000 trees is a milestone for us, so we want to mark this occasion and the 500,000th Tree way. For this reason, we have ceremoniously Tree a Tree at our home in Lenzburg to commemorate this success and, above all, our mission: Tree Tree , we Tree make our planet greener. The Tree a Norway maple, which we duly planted at Markus-Roth-Platz in Lenz together with the city of Lenzburg.
How can you imagine half a million trees?
Half a million trees – that's a figure that's hard to imagine. To put it into perspective, consider this: there are approximately 535 million trees in the whole of Switzerland. If we were to plant all 500,000 of these trees in Switzerland, they would account for around 0.1% of the total number of trees. A small number? That's misleading, because half a million trees cover more than 16,000 soccer fields. And when you consider that an area seven times the size of Switzerland is destroyed every year, every Tree planted makes Tree difference. However, it is important to know where and how trees need to be planted. Only a small proportion of the trees we plant grow in Switzerland. The majority were planted where they were urgently needed.
Where are our trees planted?
Planting trees indiscriminately is neither sensible nor sustainable. It is better to leave that to our foresters or, like us, an organization that is committed to reforestation. Knowing that there are places in the world that urgently need reforestation, NIKIN trusted the non-profit organization OneTreePlanted since its inception. They decide where in the world trees are most needed and most urgently needed—whether that's Australia after the forest fires, South America, or Africa. For example, they have planted over 5.7 million trees worldwide since 2015. To get NIKIN first-hand look at the work of OneTreePlanted, NIKIN visited Nicholas Hänny and Robin Gnehm in Canada and the US in 2018 and 2019 and planted trees with them.
Why trees are so important
Trees and their functions are as vital to humans as they are to animals, and they are actually small—or sometimes very large—masterpieces of nature. One of their most important tasks is to purify the air. They remove greenhouse gases such asCO₂ from the atmosphere and convert them into oxygen. As a "green lung," a single Tree can absorb up to 5 kilograms of air pollutants Tree year on average and produce 130 kilograms of oxygen at the same time. An impressive achievement for a single Tree. The impact that entire forests can have, on the other hand, is particularly evident in natural disasters, as forests literally stand in the way of avalanches, rockfalls, and landslides, thus preventing major damage. In addition, the forest floor filters and stores rainwater, which plays an important role in drinking water use.
Apart from that, the forest provides a home for numerous animals and plants, serving as both a source of food and shelter—from insects and spiders to birds and mammals. For us humans, the forest offers a place of relaxation where we can relieve stress and unwind. Trees also provide us with protection from the sun in summer. A service that is provided to us free of charge.
Switzerland as a land of trees
It is particularly easy to relax and unwind in the forest in Switzerland, where one-third of the country is covered in woodland. There are places everywhere where you can literally put down roots. Spruce, fir, and beech trees are the most common in Switzerland. And while trees here live to an average age of 100 years, the record is held by a yew tree that is an impressive 1,500 years old. The largest Tree Switzerland, a Douglas fir, stands in Madiswil in the canton of Bern and is around 61 meters high. Compared to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, it would just about reach the first floor.
If Switzerland's forests were divided equally among the country's population, each inhabitant would be responsible for around 75 trees. Suddenly, our relationship with our forests feels a little more familiar, especially as we can visit, name, or hug our own trees. This would probably also increase the respect and gratitude we should show our trees. This makes it all the more important to protect and appreciate nature and our trees. After all, it takes only a fraction of the time it takes for a Tree to reach its majestic size Tree to cut down a tree.
You canhelp plant trees so that we can soon reach the million mark!
