tree planting a priority?

don't get me wrong, i'm not against any beautification or environmental reconstruction ... however, when so many people have gone missing or have been kidnapped in war torn countries, one would think this type of goodwill would be put on hold for awhile?

Planting Trees In War-Torn Afghanistan
March 19, 2006,Pakistan News Service

KABUL: A Marin County church group that’s been reaching out to war-torn Afghanistan has an unlikely problem -- too much of a good thing. An ambitious tree planting project has grown beyond the group’s wildest dreams. Now they’re trying to figure out how to share the wealth.

It’s hard to believe the city of Kabul in Afghanistan was once a lush oasis known for gardens and tree covered hillsides.

Asma Eschen Nasihi, Afghans 4 Tomorrow: "People would go picnic, and Kabul was beautiful and outskirts was beautiful."

Asma Nazihi Eschen lives in Marin County now, but she grew up in Afghanistan. In the last 30 years, her homeland has been ravaged by war. The beauty she remembered disappeared.

Asma Nazihi Eschen: "The Russians cut the trees. The Afghans burned the trees themselves for fuel, and Taliban did their own burning of the trees because they didn’t want, they didn’t believe in the beautification of Afghanistan."

Asma is president of a non-profit called Afghans 4 Tomorrow, working to rebuild Afghanistan. She was thrilled when the First Presbyterian Church of San Anselmo contacted her about replanting trees around Kabul.

Church volunteers worked for three years to put together what they call the Bare Roots Project.

Ash Wood, Bare Roots Project leader: "The trees cost us two dollars each, so for a two dollar contribution you could buy a tree. For $20 you could buy 10 trees, and we raised enough so we could buy 5,000 trees."

The trees were grown in nurseries in Afghanistan. Last year, nine church volunteers flew over to plant them.

Royce Truex, volunteer: "They didn’t really expect us to do the planting. They expected us to come over, get our picture taken with the tree and with an Afghan and leave, so that they were taken by the fact that we were there really to work."

First they planted 2,000 pine trees on a hillside where there used to be a forest overlooking Kabul. Then they planted fruit trees.

Ash Wood: "We took trees out, a thousand trees, out to farmers in an area known as Istohif. We gifted trees to mosques and planted them. We gifted trees to widows, widows’ gardens, orphanages."

They hired Afghan gardeners to water and care for the trees. Everywhere they went, they brought a prayer scroll filled with good wishes from people who contributed to the project.

Joanne Whitt, pastor, First Presbyterian Church: "This is the best of what the church can be. We can celebrate our common humanity more than our religious differences."

The volunteers are going back to Afghanistan later this month. But they have a new challenge, 40 times more trees than they planted a year ago.

Last year’s trip by the First Presbyterian volunteers was such a success that a nursery in Afghanistan donated 200,000 pomegranate trees. They are highly prized in Afghanistan, but they can only survive in certain climate conditions.