On the mud flats outside Mombasa, the tide does not remain constant for long. It pulls in, retracts, leaving a surface that looks soft but behaves like something less forgiving once it’s penetrated. Typically on a stretch of coast shaped by salt, heat and passing weather systems, a man spent almost an entire day moving in a narrow rhythm among already dug holes and plants waiting to be pressed into place. The work did not stop much until daylight or nightfall. It just kept going, a small group around it and a line of young mangroves slowly taking hold in the sand-heavy soil. What happened there later became a record, although on the ground it looked more like a repeat than a spectacle.
antony moses New green record set in Kenya with 47,460 mangrove plants planted
Antoine Moses arrived on the Kenyan coast with a sort of routine already ingrained in his activities. The work of planting mangroves is not gentle on the body. Each plant has to be established in wet ground that is shaken under pressure, often knee-deep in places where the tide has recently retreated.On April 30, that rhythm stretched over hours and blurred together. The goal was simple in words but less so in practice: thousands upon thousands of mangrove propagules were placed one after the other, without much change in speed. By the time day broke and night fell, the count had reached 47,460. This number later entered the record books, but at the time it was just a growing line of tiny plants disappearing in the mud.
Antony Moses: The canadian tree planter Redefining large-scale afforestation
Antoine Moses is a Canadian tree planter and environmental activist known for his endurance planting records undertaken in various parts of the world. His work is based largely on a particular corner of reforestation, where the focus is less on the function and more on how many saplings can be put into the ground in tightly measured time windows.Before turning his attention to records, he spent years working in commercial planting operations in Canada, enduring long seasonal shifts where thousands of trees are manually planted in rough terrain. Over time, that routine became the foundation of efforts to increase the pace of record field planting, first in North America and later internationally.
Before Kenya: Antoine Moses’ record of 23,000 trees in northern Alberta
This was not the first time he had attempted something on this scale. Years earlier, in northern Alberta, he had already pioneered a similar endurance planting session, setting a record that included more than 23,000 trees planted in a single day in 2021.Those earlier efforts were shaped by Canada’s commercial reforestation work, where planting cycles throughout the season can be repetitive and physically demanding. By the time he reached Kenya, that familiarity had turned into a kind of method, based on repetition rather than planning, where movement becomes almost automatic.
Why do mangroves matter in protecting fragile coastal shorelines?
Mangroves do not grow in clean conditions. They sit at the border where sea water meets land, bearing both flood and risk equally. In Mombasa, they matter for shore fishing communities and the stability of the coastline, although it is not always visible at first glance.What was being planted that day was part of that system, young seedlings meant to take root in unstable ground and eventually hold it together. The work was physical, but the result is a slow timeline. Nothing about it changes the coastline immediately.At some points during the day, the planting line continued even as the light diminished, with headlamps and small groups working around the same narrow section. The mud did not change its consistency with the hours.
A long journey behind one million trees planted in every season
By this stage, Antoine Moses was already known for his patient planting efforts. Previous records in Canada placed him among a small group of people who view tree planting less as an environmental gesture and more as sustained physical labor to one’s limits.He has said in earlier conversations that even before the Kenyan effort, he had planted a total of more than one million trees in various projects. This figure is difficult to imagine in practical terms, but it reflects years of seasonal work rather than a single campaign.
From shoreline work to millions of online viewers around the world
After the planting session ended, attention shifted to the shoreline. Short clips and photos began circulating through social media, where followers of his work already number in the millions. There are currently about 1.6 million people tuning in to his updates, and seeing snippets of planting days that might otherwise go unnoticed.He also runs a project called Entomos, which sits somewhere between storytelling and coordinating work for reforestation campaigns. It combines environmental planting efforts with digital documentation, often relying on third-party tracking systems like VeriTree to log and verify what has been planted and where it has been placed.The idea is not framed as activism in the traditional sense. This appears to be an attempt to link record keeping with physical activity, so that the latter can find out what happens in muddy areas without relying solely on memory.
