Macedonia in Massive Reforestation Effort

"Plant Your Future" Logo

Thousands of Macedonians including local athletes, pop stars, actors and politicians joined forces Friday to plant trees all over the country.

To aid the effort, the government has called Friday a public holiday, in order to help people plant a record 7.5 million seedlings. Members of the police and the army are also included in the forestation efforts.

After Macedonia suffered a series of devastating wildfires that raged across the whole Balkans during the summer of 2007, Macedonian opera singer Boris Trajanov initiated the idea of a massive re-forestation effort that soon gained the support of the authorities and the public.

This is the forth and the largest re-forestation effort organided since the fires.

Specially appointed busses are taking volunteers from the cities to previously designated areas where they can take part in planting the saplings, under the motto: ''Tree Day-Plant Your Future''. Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski is also joining in.

The diplomatic core stationed in Macedonia has also generously supported the effort.

In the first tree-planting effort, in the spring of 2008, more than 150,000 people planted 2 million trees in one day - a figure that was meant to symbolize the number of Macedonian citizens. Six million more were planted in November, while this March the event saw a combined 5 million trees planted nationwide by a diverse network of volunteers.

Organizers say the next campaign set for spring 2010 will cross the national borders to include neighboring Albania, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Slovenia.

They are inviting other countries to join in the cause in order to raise ecological awareness around the globe.