Sri Lanka Plants 1.1mn Trees and Sets a Guinness World Record

15th November 2010, www.news360.lk

The tree planting campaign is one out of many activities planned out during this week to mark the swearing-in ceremony of President Mahinda Rajapaksa for a second term in office.

The Swearing in ceremony will take place later this week.

Chairman of the Environmental Authority Charitha Herath said “we have planted 1.1 million trees across the Island”.

However he said the unofficial figure is even higher.

Public institutions such as Schools, Banks, Provincial and local Government office’s and also a large number of private sector entities along with the General public took part in this campaign.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa joined the campaign by planting saplings of “Kiripalu” and “Sudu Handun”.

Herath said “This campaign is going to be a Guinness record”.

He added the record has been already informed to the Guinness Book officials here in the country.

The Environmental Authority Chief also noted “We have signed the required papers to obtain the record for planting 1.1 million trees”

The previous Guinness record for planting most number of trees was set in India which saw nearly seven hundred and fifty thousand trees been planted within a day in August this year.

Dr. Geethanjana Mendis who is the Coordinator in Sri Lanka for the Guinness Book office said the final status of the record will be known within few hours.

Image: President Rajapaksa awaits until the auspicious time arrives to start planting trees.