A Kenyan environmentalist hugged a palm tree for 72 straight hours in Nyeri county to draw attention to the rapid loss of the country’s native forests, many of which face extinction. Truphena Muthoni’s feat, reported by Mongabay contributing editor Lynet Otieno, is in the process of being considered for a new Guinness World Record. It surpassed the previous longest tree hug, also held by Muthoni, by more than 24 hours. She didn’t eat or sleep for the duration of the hug. Muthoni began her embrace of a royal palm (Roystonea regia) tree on Dec. 8 and ended the 72-hour feat around midday on Dec. 11, cheered on by crowds that included the Nyeri county governor, Mutahi Kahiga, as well as an online audience of hundreds of thousands. “I want to inspire people to fall in love with nature and treat it with care,” Muthoni told Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation. “Conservation begins with love. Nowadays, there are many tree-planting initiatives, but people often replace Indigenous forests with saplings, believing it is mitigation, yet it is not. We must first protect what we already have.” According to the latest State of the World’s Trees assessment, Kenya is home to 1,131 tree species, but more than 13% are threatened with extinction due to deforestation, climate change and urbanization. The royal palm that Muthoni hugged isn’t native to Kenya; it comes from the American tropics. Of Kenya’s 49 endemic tree species on record, most are under some level of threat. Nineteen are endangered and…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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