My name is Eugene Shaposhnikov, I'm from Belarus (article about me, my facebook).

In our country there is the most ancient forest of Europe - Belovezhskaya Pushcha. Forests cover 40% of our republic. We love trees since childhood. Oaks are the most powerful trees of our forests. Oak is a very important tree for world culture and ecology:

What's all this for?

WalkForOak is aimed to solve five problems:

1. Unfairly low number of oaks, the most powerful and beautiful trees of the northern hemisphere.
2. Disappearance of a useful tradition from the modern life, that is planting a new tree by an important family event (childbirth, marriage, house building).
3. The growing gap between the virtual and the real world, the weakening links to wildlife.
4. Labor intensity and the complexity of caring for the environment right here, right now.
5. Lack of records of personal contribution to environmental initiatives.

Any problem has a minus sign, its solution has a plus. A plus and a minus is equal to zero. It doesn't satisfy us. The world should become a better place. And it will be a better place, when we all understand that it's not enough just to plant a tree, it should be taken as a living being.

At first we will solve the launched problems and will plant 10 000 oak trees, some of which will be personalized. We expect your tree will become a full member of your family, and you will treat it that way — taking care, coming to visit, taking pictures of all of you together. Now all mankind of the planet is striving to become one family. The next step is to integrate all the flora and fauna of the planet to the family. The love for all living creatures and, in the end, love for everything that surrounds us is born through attachment to a tree.

When did this history begin?

In the early autumn 2012 my friends and I had a walk in the Imperial Botanical Garden of St. Petersburg. We were walking near the magnificent 150-year-old oak tree that was planted by the world-famous professor Sergey Botkin when we paid attention to several acorns poorly fallen from a tree on a plastic cover of old technical well. Suddenly we felt so sorry for these seeds, which had not any chance to become trees. According to statistics, only one acorn of 10 000 turns into a mature tree. Perhaps, the lucky one is just drying out on plastic, never even have touched the ground.

Having collected all the acorns from the cover, we brought them home to Belarus. We just put all the acorns deeper into the soil without knowing the trees planting technology and forgot about it soon. Great was our surprise when a year and a half later we saw two small oak trees sticking up above the ground. Another oak trees couple germinated a year later. Now, these "losers" have grown one and a half meters and have a dozen branches and a hundred leaves. It is these trees that gave us the idea to plant a million of their brothers and sisters. We have been living this idea for the past four years.

During this time we not only have grown and planted several hundred new oak trees but we have collected and sprouted acorns from USA, Switzerland, France, Portugal, Liechtenstein. Our international plant nursery has established itself well and now we have a necessity to open branches in other parts of the world.

Here is one tree from the saved acorns:

Why are we interested in the oak trees?

Many people believe that trees are living creatures that have intelligence, albeit not in the usual sense of the term. There are investigations that prove trees can hear and feel. It was discovered trees have at least 20 senses, they react to pain and care, they are able to transmit information and share energy with us, can be offended by our aggression and might respond to our love

And what now?

We want to grow a personalized oak tree for each of you. Sign with your name and send you the coordinates. However, there are only four of us, and planting 7 billion trees for us alone is very difficult. 

We decided to donate a personal oak tree only to those who walk 1,000,000 steps. To count your steps we need a mobile application. Developing an application for both platforms (Android, iOS) and server administration will cost about $ 5000. We are planning to raise this amount with your help.

If we collect half the amount, we will spend it on the application for Android, and then for iOS. If we collect less than half - then we will plant one personal oak tree, for all those who helped us.

We have already begun the development of a mobile application. While it does not look very nice and works only locally - without a server and without a challenge between participants.

Please contribute as you can to help us continue this mobile application.

Many thanks!