ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 10, 2025--
By harnessing the power of digital platforms and engaging users in fun, interactive, and efficient ways, the Ant Forest model can inspire hundreds of millions of people to raise environmental awareness and take meaningful climate actions, said Eric Jing, Chairman of Ant Group, at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress 2025 in Abu Dhabi.
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In 2025, DANA and Ant International, together with Konservasi International, unveiled the Ocean Buddy initiative to raise awareness and drive long-term public participation in marine conservation in Indonesia.
From left to right: Sabrina Peng, Senior Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer of Ant Group; Vince Iswara, CEO and Co-Founder of DANA Indonesia; Dr. Sylvia Earle, Founder and Chair of Mission Blue; and Eric Jing, Chairman of Ant Group, at the launch of Ocean Buddy during the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2025 in Abu Dhabi.
Inspired by Ant Forest, Philippines’ leading mobile wallet GCash launched its own GForest in 2019.
The No. 453 Ant Forest in Inner Mongolia, China, shows a clear contrast before restoration in 2021 (top) and after restoration in 2024 (bottom).
Ant Forest rewards users with virtual “green energy points” for eco-friendly actions.
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The Ant Forest Model: Turning “Points” into Real-World Impact
Jing shared the story of Alipay Ant Forest, a green initiative that empowers the general public to take part in environmental protection through simple, daily low-carbon actions.
Launched in 2016 within the Alipay app, Ant Forest rewards users with virtual “green energy points” for eco-friendly actions such as cycling to work, using public transportation, or recycling. These points are then translated into tangible outcomes: Ant Group funds real-world tree planting, biodiversity conservation, and habitat restoration projects in partnership with NGOs and environmental organizations.
For example, users can redeem their points to support wildlife preservation or grow virtual trees that are later planted as real trees in reforestation areas.
As of August 2025, more than 750 million users across China have joined Ant Forest. Together, they helped plant 619 million trees. The project also created jobs for local communities who help plant and care for the forests.
An Open Platform: Expanding the Circle of Impact
Ant Forest continues to evolve as an open platform, inviting partners to use “green energy points” to encourage green actions among their customers.
One notable example is Nike’s “Recycle-A-Shoe” mini program, launched in the Alipay app in 2022. The program enables Chinese consumers to send in worn-out Nike shoes for recycling. The collected shoes are dismantled and repurposed into sustainable sports courts using Nike Grind technology. Participants also earn Ant Forest points, which they can use to support tree planting and ecological restoration. As of October 2025, Nike has recycled 430,000 pairs of shoes, helping to create 50 Nike Grind sports courts across China.
During the event, Sabrina Peng, Senior Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer of Ant Group, shared that Ant Forest is also using interactive digital experiences to inspire people to learn about biodiversity. In 2021, Ant Forest launched the Amazing Species project to raise public awareness of biodiversity conservation by allowing users to discover new rare species on their phones through a fun card-collecting experience. In 2024, Ant Forest and IUCN jointly released the Red List of Amazing Species at UNFCCC COP 29. By highlighting endangered species from the IUCN Red List on Ant Forest, the initiative raised public awareness and inspired action to protect them.
Inspiring Global Partners to Build Their Own “Ant Forest”
Ant Forest’s success has earned global recognition. In 2017, Fortune ranked Ant Financial (now Ant Group) #6 on its “ Change the World ” list for the initiative’s positive environmental impact. Two years later, Ant Forest received the United Nations’ highest environmental honor—the “ UN Champions of the Earth ” award, followed shortly by the “ UN Global Climate Action Award ” for its innovative use of digital technology to scale up climate action.
The model of Ant Forest has inspired similar initiatives worldwide. In 2019, the Philippines’ leading mobile wallet GCash launched GForest, enabling users to contribute to local reforestation through low-carbon lifestyle choices.
At the World Conservation Congress 2025, DANA and Ant International, together with Konservasi International, unveiled the Ocean Buddy initiative, an interactive in-app mini program to raise awareness and drive long-term public participation in marine conservation among DANA's 200 million users in Indonesia. Ocean Buddy leverages gamification incentives and lively visual designs to enhance broad-based, long-term user participation in conservation efforts, specifically the protection of whale sharks along the southern coast of Java.
“With global partners, may our small acts turn into a green future. Tech for good, tech for nature—this is our promise for the future,” said Eric Jing at the event.
About Ant Group
Ant Group is a global digital technology provider and the operator of Alipay, a leading internet services platform in China, connecting over one billion users to more than 10,000 types of consumer services from partners. Through innovative products and solutions powered by AI, blockchain and other technologies, Ant Group supports partners across industries to thrive through digital transformation in an ecosystem for inclusive and sustainable development. For more information, visit www.antgroup.com.
In 2025, DANA and Ant International, together with Konservasi International, unveiled the Ocean Buddy initiative to raise awareness and drive long-term public participation in marine conservation in Indonesia.
From left to right: Sabrina Peng, Senior Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer of Ant Group; Vince Iswara, CEO and Co-Founder of DANA Indonesia; Dr. Sylvia Earle, Founder and Chair of Mission Blue; and Eric Jing, Chairman of Ant Group, at the launch of Ocean Buddy during the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2025 in Abu Dhabi.
Inspired by Ant Forest, Philippines’ leading mobile wallet GCash launched its own GForest in 2019.
The No. 453 Ant Forest in Inner Mongolia, China, shows a clear contrast before restoration in 2021 (top) and after restoration in 2024 (bottom).
Ant Forest rewards users with virtual “green energy points” for eco-friendly actions.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is taking up one of the term’s most consequential cases, President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens, and he was in the courtroom on Wednesday for some of the arguments.
The justices are hearing Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions, one of several courts that have blocked them. They have not taken effect anywhere in the country.
Trump is the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the nation’s highest court. He spent just over an hour inside the courtroom, hearing arguments by the government’s lawyer, Solicitor General D. John Sauer. He left shortly after Sauer wrapped up and the plaintiff was invited to present her case.
The case frames another test of Trump's assertions of executive power that defy long-standing precedent for a court that has largely ruled in the president's favor — but with some notable exceptions that Trump has responded to with starkly personal criticisms of the justices. A definitive ruling is expected by early summer.
The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed the first day of his second term, is part of his Republican administration’s broad immigration crackdown.
Birthright citizenship is the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. The justices previously struck down global tariffs Trump had imposed under an emergency powers law that had never been used that way.
Trump reacted furiously to the late February tariffs decision, saying he was ashamed of the justices who ruled against him and calling them unpatriotic.
He issued a preemptive broadside against the court on Sunday on his Truth Social platform. “Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America. It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!,” the president wrote. “Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country make!”
Trump's order would upend the long-standing view that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, and federal law since 1940 confer citizenship on everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions for the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.
The 14th Amendment was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship, though the Citizenship Clause is written more broadly. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” it reads.
In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down the executive order as illegal, or likely so, under the Constitution and federal law. The decisions have invoked the high court's 1898 ruling in Wong Kim Ark, which held that the U.S.-born child of Chinese nationals was a citizen.
The Trump administration argues that the common view of citizenship is wrong, asserting that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.
The court should use the case to set straight “long-enduring misconceptions about the Constitution’s meaning,” wrote Sauer, the solicitor general.
No court has accepted that argument, and lawyers for pregnant women whose children would be affected by the order said the Supreme Court should not be the first to do so.
“We have the president of the United States trying to radically reinterpret the definition of American citizenship,” said Cecillia Wang, the American Civil Liberties Union legal director who is facing off against Sauer at the Supreme Court.
More than one-quarter of a million babies born in the U.S. each year would be affected by the executive order, according to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.
While Trump has largely focused on illegal immigration in his rhetoric and actions, the birthright restrictions also would apply to people who are legally in the United States, including students and applicants for green cards, or permanent resident status.
Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.
Pro and anti-Trump demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court, before justices hear oral arguments on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
President Donald Trump leaves the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump's motorcade arrives at the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Pro and anti-Trump demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court, before justices hear oral arguments on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
President Donald Trump's motorcade arrives at the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Demonstrators holding opposing views verbally engage ahead of President Donald Trump's arrival at the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
President Donald Trump's limo exits the White House en route to the Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump's motorcade arrives at the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Pro and anti-Trump demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court, before justices hear oral arguments on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
People arrive to walk inside the U.S. Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. The Supreme Court justices will hear oral arguments today on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
People arrive to walk inside the U.S. Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. The Supreme Court justices will hear oral arguments today on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick listens. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The U.S. Supreme Court is seen as the moon rises Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
