Tree Planting as Resistance in Palestine

Sep 8, 2021 | Elle Ambler
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In Palestine, the struggle for land cannot be separated from the fight for agricultural and environmental rights. Restrictions and attacks on agriculture are used by Israel to maintain and expand control over Palestinians and their lands. This strategy is enforced through a web of military orders, and by environmental damage inflicted by the state and its citizens.

In 2001, a group concerned with the Palestinian struggle for justice formed to launch the Million Tree Campaign (MTC) in response to these pressures. In the past 20 years, the campaign has planted two and a half million trees, bolstering Palestinian foodways and preserving Palestinian land rights.The group that started the MTC later became the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature, which now works to achieve food sovereignty across the region, with an emphasis on areas experiencing war and occupation.