Patel says PlantForever distributed and planted more 500 trees in Edmonton in the 2023 season. 'For Edmonton, we over 500 trees this season,' he said in an interview earlier this summer. 'It's pretty difficult to fit that in one person's home.' PlantForever faces two major challenges, according to Patel: storage and funding. What on Earth spoke to people who are passionately dedicated to their tree-planting missions and learned about some of the scientific and bureaucratic challenges they're experiencing along the way. The federal government is continuing its work to plant two billion trees by 2031, despite comments from Canada's environmental watchdog earlier this year stating that Ottawa was using 'creative accounting' to claim it was exceeding its targets. 'The ideal outcome is to see every major city with a big tree canopy percentage, have opportunities for parks and trees at homes and public property, and not feel that disconnect that we see in many major cities where it's just concrete and roads and not enough nature,' Patel, a 21-year-old computer science student at the University of Saskatchewan, told CBC's What on Earth. Homeowners in Edmonton and Saskatoon can register with the group to plant trees on their property in exchange for a minimum donation of $10 per tree - and the first tree is free. PlantForever is a student-led initiative founded in 2017. It's about bringing green space back to concrete jungles and helping build connections between city slickers and nature. What On Earth 21:39 Tree planters face myriad challenges across CanadaĬompared to the federal government's goal of planting two billion trees, a local non-profit like PlantForever might seem like a single leaf in the wind.īut to founding president Marmik Patel, the work is about more than sheer numbers.

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