Uttar Pradesh- Guinness World Record

The 24-hour event took place last Monday, July 11th, where more than 800,000 people from Uttar Pradesh took part in planting trees around India’s northern states. The volunteers in total planted 49.3 million tree saplings from 80 different tree species, all sourced locally from nurseries in Uttar Pradesh.

Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, made the Guinness World Records for the most trees planted in a single day, the previous record held by Pakistan, which planted 847,275 trees in a day in 2013. The trees were planted along highways, railroad tracks, small roads, and publicly owned forests.

As part of the Paris Climate Agreement signed on Earth Day 2016, India designated $6.2 billion towards an afforestation effort across India to bring India’s forest cover to 235 million acres by 2030. The central government has encouraged all of India’s states to take part in tree planting campaigns similar to Uttar Pradesh.