Olympic Forest growing as symbolic tree planted by IOC President Bach in Senegal

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Published on November 1, 2022 1:57:01 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyJvHPa-vN0

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The Olympic Forest is growing: On the occasion of a visit to Senegal, host of the Youth Olympic Games 2026, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach, accompanied by IOC members Kirsty Coventry and Mamadou Diagna Ndiaye, planted a symbolic native tree at the future Youth Olympic Village in Dakar. This celebrates the first phase of tree-planting activities for the Olympic Forest in Senegal and Mali, where 70,000 seedlings have already been planted to date.

Speaking at the planting ceremony that took place on Saturday on the university campus of Diamniadio – future home of the athletes for the Youth Olympic Games Dakar 2026 – President Bach welcomed the progress of the project: “I am delighted to see that the project is now underway and that the first 70,000 trees have been planted in Senegalese and Malian villages in the Sahel zone. The Olympic Forest is about more than just planting trees. Communities in the Sahel zone will greatly benefit from this project by seeing an increase in their climate resilience, food security, nutrition and income opportunities. The Olympic Movement is about building a better world through sport, and the Olympic Forest demonstrates our commitment to this vision.”

In total, the Olympic Forest project will involve the planting of around 590,000 native trees over four years across 90 villages in Mali and Senegal, restoring approximately 2,000 hectares of degraded forest and farmland.

President Bach added: “The Olympic Forest is a key driver of the IOC’s ambition to move from now being a carbon-neutral to a climate-positive organisation in 2024 and helps us to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than we emit. With this we want to lead the way for the entire Olympic Movement.”