India Sets Guinness Reforestation Record

On Sunday, more than 67 million trees were planted in Madhya Pradesh in central India.

RELATED: 
Brazil’s Temer Met With Opposition in Norway Over Deforestation

The reforestation effort, which spanned half a day, resulted in a new Guinness World Record being set. The undertaking fell within the Indian Government's plans to combat wide-spread deforestation that has plagued the country.

Over 1.5 million people – including students, housewives and government officials – planted the tree saplings in 12 hours. The saplings included two-dozen varieties of plants.

The record for planting maximum saplings was previously held by Indian state Uttar Pradesh, which planted nearly 50 million trees in a span of 24 hours in July 2016.

The state chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan said, “I am greatly indebted to all who are planting trees today. We will be contributing significantly in saving nature. By participating in a plantation, people are contributing their bit to climate change initiatives and saving the environment.The world talks of global warming & climate change, but Madhya Pradesh has taken a concrete step to deal with it.”

In accordance with the Paris Climate pact, India pledged to increase their forest cover to 95 million hectares (235 million acres or roughly 29 percent of the country's territory) by the year 2030.

The government will be pumping $6.2 billion into the project. India made the commitment at the 2015 climate conference and signed the agreement on Earth Day 2016, which will reforest 12 percent of its lands.

As a result, similar projects are taking place across the country to create public awareness towards reforestation.

Already, Kerala planted more than 10 million trees in June and Maharashtra will plant 40 million trees this year.