Ahead of the International Day of Forests, the European Commission is organizing a conference "Rooting 3 billion trees" in Brussels today, which is also available live . Tree-planting organisations, NGOs and authorities from across the EU are invited to share best practices and provide recommendations on how to reach the 3 billion additional trees planted target of the EU's Biodiversity and Forestry Strategy by 2030.

Virginius Sinkevičius , Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, said:

In 2021, we committed to planting at least 3 billion additional trees by 2030, while fully respecting ecological principles. Today, 44 organizations from all 27 Member States have reported trees to our system, sometimes even several million trees at once. This level of reporting shows that we are serious about our commitment. We are not satisfied with just words, we want results on the spot. This approach differentiates our commitment from many other similar initiatives. (More on environment.ec.europa.eu)