“They Uproot a Tree… We Plant a Tree” is a popular campaign that was launched by Palestinian Jordanian Razan Zwaiter in 2000 to plant one million trees in Palestine.  The campaign was executed, in cooperation with partners inside and outside Palestine, to enrich agricultural land that was destroyed, and plant trees where others were uprooted.

The campaign became central to launching the Arab Organisation for the Conservation of Nature in 2003, a non-profit organisation dedicated to contributing to the efforts to protect the environment in the Arab world, and to coordinating with other Arab and international entities to achieve this goal. Since its inception, the organisation has succeeded in planting more than 2.1 million trees in Palestine.

The Board of Directors of the organisation have also launched several other initiatives, including the “Green Caravan” initiative, dedicated to supporting food security in marginalized areas in Jordan, and protecting green spaces that are threatened by desertification, overgrazing and urban encroachment.

Zuwaiter also launched the “Sovereignty over Food” programme to influence agricultural policies and strategies at the regional and international levels. The programme mainly deals with asserting the right for everyone to healthy, useful and appropriate food production sources, and the right to be able to sustain that source for the community.

In addition, she founded the Arab Network for Food Sovereignty. The network is headed by Zuwaiter, and which includes 49 organisations and federations dealing with agriculture and the environment in 17 Arab countries. The Network also aims to strengthen and unify the Arab voice at regional and international specialised forums.

Thanks for Zuwaiter’s, and the organisation’s, effort, 23,398 farmers were supported and an area of 112,386 dunums* of land were protected.

For Zuwaiter, the cause of protecting nature and food sustainability is essential to planting and protecting the future of hope for many generations to come.

Some people wonder what the secret to the Palestinian resistance in the face of a brutal colonial occupation that uproots its trees is. The answer: perseverance and hope.