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Earth Hour 2013
Earth Hour 2013 will be held across the world on Saturday, March 23 at 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. local time to avoid taking place before European Summer Time begins, ensuring the greatest impact of the lights off event. It is also to avoid coinciding with Western Christianity Holy Saturday, which falls on March 30 of that year.
In 2013, the world's first Earth Hour Forest began in Uganda, as a first step to fight the 6000 hectares of deforestation that occur in the country every month. The WWF-Uganda team identified close to 2700 hectares of degraded land, and used the I Will If You Will concept to challenge businesses, government officials and individuals to fill it with at least 500,000 trees during the year. Standard Chartered Bank-Uganda pledged to help fill the forest with more than 250,000 trees.
Former President of Botswana, Mr Festus Mogae promised to plant one million indigenous trees over a four years, as part of his I Will If You Will challenge for Earth 2013. He will kick off his incredible IWIYW challenge by planting 100,000 trees in a severely degraded area in Southern part of the country called Goodhope. The remaining trees will be planted in other parts of the country which are also in need of land rehabilitation, such as in the North Eastern and Western part of Botswana.
By Earth Hour 2013, the 'Ini Aksiku! Mana Aksimu?' campaign (localised Indonesian version of I Will If You Will) led to a revolutionary use of Twitter to mobilise 30 cities across Indonesia to take ongoing action beyond the hour.
The I Will If You Will campaign spread to more than 50 countries, generating momentum behind Earth Hour's push to be an ongoing movement for change.
At the global media launch for Earth Hour 2013, CEO and Co-Founder Andy Ridley spoke about the movement's massive environmental outcomes beyond the hour.
"People from all walks of life, from all nations around the world, are the lifeblood of the Earth Hour interconnected global community. They have proven time and time again that if you believe in something strongly enough, you can achieve amazing things. These stories aren't unique, this is happening all over the world," he said.
