The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono was an extraordinary story about one man's efforts to protect the environment. It tells the story of a shepherd's single-handed determination to reforest a desolate valley at the foot of the Alps, near Provence, throughout the first half of the 20th century. The story is narrated by an anonymous man throughout the book. The story begins in 1910, when a young man undertakes a long hike through Provence, France and into the Alps. The narrator runs out of water in a treeless and uninhabited valley where there is no trace of civilization. The narrator only finds a dry well, but he is saved by a middle-aged shepherd who gives him water from his canteen to drink. Later, the shepherd takes the narrator to his cottage where he offers him food and a place to stay for the night. As the narrator spends the night, he becomes curious about this shepherd, who lives all alone in this stone house, and decides to stay for a little longer. The widowed shepherd had decided to restore the ruined landscape of the isolated and largely abandoned valley by single-handedly cultivating a forest, tree by tree. The shepherd Elzéard Bouffier makes holes in the ground and plants acorns that he has collected from afar. The narrator is surprised at what this man did alone. It was an incredible project that not just anyone could have done. The narrator leaves the shepherd knowing with certainty that he will return to see what he has accomplished. He later fought in World War I. In 1920, the man returned to the same valley. Instead of seeing a desolate valley with little progress, to his amazement there were saplings......in the middle of a paper......t. By the end of 2005, thanks to the Pan-African Green Belt Network, more than fifteen African countries had become involved in the Green Belt Movement. The movement extends beyond African borders to the United States. For his lifelong dedication to the environment and human rights, Maathai has received numerous awards, including the Goldman Environmental Prize, the Right Livelihood Award and the United Nations Africa Leadership Award. Additionally, in 2004, Maathai was awarded the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first black woman and the first environmentalist to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai was best known as the founder of the Green Belt Movement: an initiative to plant trees in forest areas. from Kenya which were beginning to be used commercially. Critics questioned whether a "tree planter" was truly a peace activist and I'm here to say she was..