Su - jin : I have just read a book about a great man . Cathy : What ' s the tittle of the book ? Su - jin : The Man Who Planted Trees . It ' s about a man who changed the world . Cathy : What did he do ? Su - jin : He planted trees in the desert for forty years . And the desert changed into a forest . Cathy : For forty years ? That ' s incredible . Su - jin : At first nobody thought he could do it , but he made it . Cathy : Wow ! What a great man ! Su - jin : He thought me an important lesson , " Humans are able to change the world . " Cathy : I couldn ' t agree more . I have enjoyed hiking for a long time . I have hiked all over the world . The Provence region of France is my favorite place . There are many small mountains there . I like this area because it has changed so much . It was a completely desolate area , like a desert . There were almost no trees or water . The wind blew dry and cold . It was not a nice place . As a result , almost nobody lived there . That ' s why I was very surprised when I saw a man walking all alone one day . He had a long pole . He pushed it into the ground and dropped something into the hole . I asked him , " What are you doing ? " He said , " I am plating trees . In three years I have planted over 100 , 000 trees . " I looked around me . It was like a desert . I thought he was crazy . I continued hiking . Ten years later I went back there . Still the crazy man was busy planting trees . There were tall trees everywhere . I hiked in silence through a huge forest . It was 11 kilometers long and 3 kilometers wide . I was really surprised . He planted even more trees . The valleys between the mountains were filled with few trees ; beautiful and the air was clean . After that , I decided I would often go back to hike there . For the next 25 years , I went back to those mountains often . I was always shocked . How fast everything happened ! There was no water before . The new trees held the rain in the ground . Now there were rivers . Because there was water , more things grew . The desert became fertile . Very quickly , the whole countryside changed . People came to farm the good land . They built towns . The town ' s people planted trees and had gardens with beautiful flowers . Still , this man planted more trees . It became a beautiful place . 37 years after I met him , Elezeard Bouffier died . He was 87 . He planted trees untill he died . I once thought him crazy . Now I think he was a great man . He had the power to make the world a better place .