Abdul Awal, a Ghanaian journalist, has broken the Guinness World Record (GWR) for the longest time spent hugging a tree.
Her unique “tree hugging marathon,” which took place outside the Kumasi Cultural Centre, lasted 24 hours and 21 minutes.
This beats the previous record set by Ugandan environmental activist Faith Ariokot of 16 hours, making her achievement quite exceptional.
This surpasses the previous record set by Ugandan environmental activist Faith Ariokot, making her achievement truly exceptional.
This year, Awal is the second Ghanaian to set a world record for tree hugging. He follows in the footsteps of forestry student Abubakar Tahiru, an activist who set a record for the most trees hugged in one hour, after hugging 1,123 trees, averaging nearly 19 per minute in April.
The world record-setting body announced Awal's feat on its website on Tuesday. Awal took up the challenge to highlight the importance of nature conservation in Ghana. He pledged to plant a new tree for every minute of his record attempt, which ended with a total of 1,461.
They said: “Abdul was not allowed to take any breaks during his record attempt; he had to stand and keep his arms around the tree for the entire duration of the attempt. Although we have been taught about tree preservation from the earliest years of our lives, the contribution of each individual is not as significant as it should be. This attempt to hug a tree for such a long time demonstrates an important task to preserve human life by preserving trees.”
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GWR says that now that the record is 24 hours (the point at which record attempts are considered “marathons”), the title has been changed to the longest tree hugging marathon, opening up new possibilities for future challengers.
“This means that future participants will be allowed breaks (a total of two hours per day) to combat the harmful effects of sleep deprivation,” they added.
Mr Awal, who has witnessed the consequences of desertification in his family's hometown of Garu, now hopes to establish a nationwide tree-planting initiative.
He said: “We know that trees, an essential resource on which the entire human race depends, are in short supply in Ghana.”
Since Hilda Baci, a Nigerian, officially broke the GWR for the longest cooking marathon (individual), with a time of 93 hours and 11 minutes, in 2023, Africans have continued to attempt different records, and some have managed to break existing records.
“Hilda’s record attempt took the social media world by storm, with millions of people in Nigeria and beyond following her progress via an Instagram live stream.
“Hilda’s cooking marathon was so popular that our website crashed for two days due to the sheer volume of traffic we received from her legion of loyal fans,” the organization said.
GWR is the world authority on all things record-related, with offices in the UK, USA, China, Japan and UAE, as well as official referees verifying records around the world.