Aiming for ‘green legacy,’ Ethiopia plants 350m trees

The Guardian





Ethiopia has planted about 350 million trees in a single day, Ethiopian Minister of Innovation and Technology Getahun Mekuria said on Monday.

The planting is part of a national “green legacy “ initiative to grow 4 billion trees in the nation this summer by encouraging every citizen to plant at least 40 seedlings.

Public offices have reportedly been shut down to allow civil servants to take part.

The project aims to tackle the effects of deforestation and climate change in the drought-prone nation.

Ethiopia’s forest coverage was just 4 percent in the 2000s, down from 35 percent a century earlier, the UN said.

Mekuria tweeted estimates of the number of trees planted throughout the day. By early evening on Monday, he put the number at 353 million.

The previous world record for the most trees planted in one day stood at 50 million, held by India since 2016.

“Trees not only help mitigate climate change by absorbing the carbon dioxide in the air, but they also have huge benefits in combating desertification and land degradation, particularly in arid countries. They also provide food, shelter, fuel, fodder, medicine, materials and protection of the water supply,” said Dan Ridley-Ellis, head of the center for wood science and technology at Edinburgh Napier University.

“This truly impressive feat is not just the simple planting of trees, but part of a huge and complicated challenge to take account of the short and long-term needs of both the trees and the people,” he added. “The forester’s mantra: ‘The right tree in the right place,’ increasingly needs to consider the effects of climate change.”