Women & Climate: Planting a Global Forest in a Connected World

Mar 23, 2020 | Rita Ann Wallace and Cynthia S Reyes
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In January of this year, Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, shocked much of the world when they announced they would be stepping down from their roles as senior royals.

Much of the world, that is, except members of their loosely knit online supporter group the “Sussex Squad”, who had been following their doings closely. In the prior two months, one part of the “Squad” had planted over 30,000 out of a targeted 100,000 trees in their honor. And therein lies a tale.

On World Children’s Day, 20 November 2019, a group of 11 women, mostly women of color, and connected only by a wish to counter the tabloid and social media negativity around Harry and Meghan, launched “Sussex Great Forest”, a Twitter- and Instagram-based campaign to plant trees around the world.