QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Hard-working volunteers in northeast Syria’s Qamishli mix soil with fertilizer in order to prepare it for seeding, before putting it into bags for the first stage of the Green Tresses campaign, which aims to counter desertification in the area.
This fall, five volunteers launched a forestation campaign in northeast Syria which they named Green Tresses. The campaign aims to plant about 4,000,000 trees within five years.
Thousands of seeds
The participants’ team have planted about 15,000 seeds in bags in Afrin nursery in Qamishli city, in order to transplant them after a year, according to those in charge of the campaign.
The volunteers prefer to plant seeds and wait for them to grow into saplings, rather to buy ready ones since it is a volunteer project.
Ziwar Sheikho, the spokesperson of Green Strands campaign, did not deny the difficulty of the task, which he described as “a big challenge through which we aim to change the environmental conditions in the region.”
“The name of the was inspired by women’s sacrifices and roles in northeast Syria, including her role in ruling and protecting the area,” Sheikho added.
Over the past several decades, the soil in the northern regions of Syria has severely deteriorated, as the central government in Damascus mandated the growing of wheat and other crops that have a detrimental effect on the soil quality. The Syrian government imposed fines on those growing trees on agricultural land and burned, cut, and sold thousands of olive trees in the country’s north, according to Sheikho.
Open participation
The campaign chose to plant forest trees that could adjust to several climates.
Jilan Hussein, a volunteer in the campaign, said that the project is a volunteer campaign and that anyone may participate. “These trees will modify the climate and change the dry climate in the Rojava region,” she stated, adding that “they will have an important role in increasing the vegetation, as they are great for health and aesthetics.”
The volunteers contacted local and international parties and institutions in order to explain the goal of the campaign and invite them to participate in it.
Gulistan Saydo, the campaign’s affairs coordinator, said that many parties are interested in these environmental projects and have expressed their readiness to support and participate, whether materially or morally.
Next month, Saydo plans to explain the importance of the campaign during an official conference in which several countries will participate. It is expected that the campaign will gain more cooperation and support during the conference, in which several organizations and figures concerned with the environment will attend, according to the Saydo.