Pakistan makes world record by planting over: 50,000 saplings in less than one minute

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam on Thursday led a tree plantation event in Gujranwala aimed at setting up a new Guinness World Record of planting over 52,000 saplings in 40 seconds.

Speaking on the occasion, Malik Amin Aslam said that 52,040 saplings had been planted in the presence of representatives of Guinness World Records, which bettered an Indian record of planting 37,000 saplings in one minute.

Previously, Bhutan, in 2015, had set the world record of planting 49,672 saplings in less than one minute.Some 12,500 students planted over 50,000 saplings in an area between Rawalpindi Bypass and Chand Ka Qila Bypass after sirens were played. As many as 47 drone-cameras recorded the activity.

He said it was even better as boys and girls had achieved the world record of planting 52,040 plants in a mere 40 seconds, adding, “The Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) Gujranwala would take care of the plants till they grow into trees.’

“The people of Gujranwala have given a gift to the country on the 74th Independence Day with a message to the country that 14th August should be commemorated as the Green Pakistan Day and everyone should plant at least one sapling on the day,” he said.

Admiring the spirit, he said students stood in a 14-kilometre-long queue to plant trees as part of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Clean and Green Pakistan campaign to plant 10 billion trees in the country.

Elaborating Prime Minister Imran Khan’s vision to turn Pakistan green, he said Pakistan was also one of the countries that had been hit hard by the climate change and the tree plantation was the need of the hour.

“Pakistan is leading a tree plantation drive in the world while the people of Gujranwala are leading the countrywide drive,” he said, adding that Prime Minister Imran Khan had recently inaugurated the world’s largest Miyawaki urban forest in Lahore, which would help fight the climate degradation.

He said these plants would not only fight global warming but also defeat ignorance of the political rivals in Gujranwala, who had claimed that the growth of trees, under the Clean and Green Pakistan drive, would invite wild animals into the city.About terming the green cover a security risk by the political opponents in Gujranwala, he asked them to shun ignorance and plant a sapling of their share.