The Governor’s Climate Change Task Force is planning a tree planting activity to help off set the territory’s carbon footprint which has been linked to sea level rise.
Task Force member, Ameko Pato, Director of the Environmental Protection Agency says the Task Force has identified sea level rise as the most pressing climate change problem affecting American Samoa.
Two activities that the Task Force has put on its priority list to help counter the rising tides are to plant trees along the coast and to compile an electronic data base of all information relating to the impacts of climate change in American Samoa.
The trees will come from the Land Grant Division, and only those that are appropriate for the coast and don’t interfere with visibility and roads will be used.
Pato says the date for the tree planting activity which they hope to involve villages will be announced when the Task Force finalizes it.
