The BIG Picture

When you participate in the Footsteps for Trees hiking campaign, you will not only become more active and healthy but you will be helping Conservation Halton plant trees to improve the health of the environment. The Footsteps for Trees hiking campaign contributes to Conservation Halton’s ongoing tree planting efforts. The environmental agency has a target of planting 500,000 trees over five years to increase forest cover in the region. This contributes to Ontario’s target of planting 50 million trees by 2020. On a global scale Ontario has pledged its tree planting targets to the United Nation’s “Billion Trees Campaign” that is promoting a worldwide planting program of one billion trees per year.

Why Plant More Trees?
Planting large numbers of trees on private and public lands will remove millions of metric tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – and that means cleaner air and water for all of us. Trees and wood products are about 50 per cent carbon by weight. As trees grow, they reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by absorbing it and storing the carbon in stems, branches and roots.