GBM Blog

This week, Democracy Now highlighted a young German student, Felix Finkbeiner, founder of the youth-led organization Plant for the Planet. When he was just 9 years old, Felix was giving a presentation to his 4th grade class about climate change. Inspired by his research on Wangari Maathai, he had the idea to lead a movement to plant 1 million trees in every country around the world.

Some might have said that age would be a barrier in accomplishing such a noble task, but Felix clearly didn’t let that get in the way of his passion and mission. Now at age13, Felix and his fellow students have succeeded in planting over 1 million trees in Germany and continue working diligently in other parts of the world.

In Cancun, Plant for the Planet planted 193 trees along-side dignitaries and world leaders to represent all of the countries in attendance of the negotiations.

Their message to world leaders was simple: “Stop talking, start planting!”