Welcome to the Earth Hour global community!

To celebrate 60 days to go until Earth Hour 2013, we're announcing that the world's first Earth Hour Forest will be created in the East African nation of Uganda, to fight against the 6000 hectares of deforestation that occurs in the country every month.

With much of the forest converted to wood fuel, the rapid deforestation rate is threatening to wipe out the entire green cover of the 'Pearl of Africa'.

But our team in Uganda has secured more than 2,700 hectares of land, and set a goal to fill it with at least 500,000 indigenous trees as part of their Earth Hour 2013 campaign.

Businesses, government officials and many individuals are quickly taking up the challenge set by WWF-Uganda to reach their 2013 goal.  Leading the way is Standard Chartered Bank - Uganda, which has already committed to plant close to 250,000 trees, and the Ugandan Minister of State for Environment who has personally pledged to plant 1,000 trees.

We hope to involve the Earth Hour global community in the reforestation project in East Africa, so stay tuned on the developments of this massive project as we get more commitments to help make the forest a reality.

This is the second huge environmental outcome the I Will If You Will campaign has been achieved, adding to the hundreds of thousands of commitments made by individuals, organisations, businesses and ambassadors last year to go beyond the hour. 

Just last month the Russian Parliament passed a strengthened law to better protect the country's seas from oil pollution after a petition carrying the voices of 122,000 people was successfully presented to the State Duma. WWF-Russia used celebrity I Will If You Will challenges to motivate citizens to sign the petition during the three weeks around Earth Hour 2012.

Earth Hour 2013 will take place on Saturday, March 23 at 8:30PM local time.