One Tree, One Planet

The project celebrates Earth’s rich diversity of animals, plants and microbes represented by the Tree of Life, the immense network of relationships that links all living things.

The ONE TREE, ONE PLANET app connects the user with the artwork and allows everyone to interact with the Tree of Life. In addition, the app enables viewers to meet challenges to improve our impact on the environment. After being connected to our cousins in this Tree of Life projection, viewers will be invited to make changes in their daily life; to paraphrase Gandhi, to be truly the change we want to see in the world.

Different challenges are presented: a week without meat, reconnection to nature, less waste, and a multitude of personal challenges to help make all of us realize that there are simple things we can do each day to make a difference. Each challenge will be rewarded with points and participants will be invited to challenge their friends and community to become part of the movement.

The application also includes an interactive Tree of Life based on OneZoom, allowing users to understand the connections between the more than 2 million species currently represented on the Tree of Life. The immersive, intuitive interface combines fractal geometry and images of organisms as the user zooms through the branches that show how organisms are connected through their shared evolutionary history.

The project is a collaboration between art and science by artist Naziha Mestaoui, and scientists Douglas Soltis, Pamela Soltis, Robert Guralnick, Matt Gitzendanner, Yan Wong and James Rosindell.