By Mayukh Saha / Truth Theory

The Guinness World Record of planting the most number of trees in a short amount of time was broken by India in 2017. 66 million trees were planted by India in only 12 hours. In 2019, Ethiopia planted 350 million trees in the same amount. This was done to reverse the damaging effects of rapid deforestation in the Asian and African countries. These countries were also affected by desertification as a result of widespread agriculture.

353,633,660 Tree Seedlings Planted in 12 Hours. This is in #Ethiopians Regional Shares of Trees Planted today.#PMOEthiopia #GreenLegacyEthiopia pic.twitter.com/2BkTDtYedC — Dr.-Ing. Getahun Mekuria (@DrGetahun) July 29, 2019

100 years ago, around 35% of Ethiopia was forested land which has now reduced to an alarming 4%. Ethiopia planted millions of trees in one day to make up for the lack of greenery. Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister, led the mass project. Drought is a common phenomenon in Ethiopia and climate change has had a disastrous effect on the land. The sorry state of the deserted land made this initiative an absolute necessity. Civil servants took part in the program as the public offices were shut down on that day.

I did my share to #PlantMyPrint and leave a #GreenLegacyEthiopia 💪🏼🇪🇹

Such an exciting campaign that went beyond expected!

Well done #Ethiopia on breaking the record of planting over 353 million trees in just a day! pic.twitter.com/lviRQYIQwd — Bitania Lulu Berhanu (@bitania_lulu) July 29, 2019

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Mr. Ahmed launched this program as a part of the Green Legacy Initiative. The initiative took place in nearly 1,000 spots in the country. According to the UN, the forest coverage of Ethiopia has depleted rapidly from the beginning of the 20th century to the 2000s. The civil servants were given the duty to count seedlings and the volunteers planted them. Getahun Mekuria, Minister of Innovation and Technology of Ethiopia tweeted about the success of the initiative. The desired target was to plant around 4 billion indigenous trees. The media campaign focused on spreading awareness among the masses to plant more trees and nurture the existing ones. The UN staff, foreign embassies in Ethiopia, and the African Union took part in the eco-friendly endeavor.

#Ethiopia began its National Tree Planting compaign to plant 200M trees a day. @UNEnvironment supports the campaign 2 reach 4 billion trees as response to fight land degradation & climate change @SDG2030 #GreenLegacyEthiopia pic.twitter.com/3e91r1f32W — UN Environment in Africa (@UNEP_Africa) July 29, 2019

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The country’s government has also urged its people to plant around 40 trees to reach the 4 billion target as soon as possible. Every other country must take a cue from this to combat climate change effectively!