Ethiopia ‘breaks’ tree-planting world record

Ethiopia has suffered from the negative impact of climate change by enduring major drought in parts of the country over the past five years. According to Farm Africa, an organization working on reforestation efforts in East Africa, less than 4% of Ethiopia’s land is forested, compared to around 30% at the end of the 19th century.

Reports indicate that in 2017, over 2 million animals died when the country experienced its second severe drought in less than two years. Insufficient rainfall during that year’s rainy season led to severe water shortages, catastrophic livestock losses, and failed crops throughout the country. Prior to that, a severe drought in 2016 triggered by multiple consecutive seasons of below-average rainfall and the effects of the 2015/2016 El Niño climatic event created a complex emergency.

To proactively combat the effects of climate change, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed kicked off a mission to plant four billion trees across the country. The reforestation campaign named “Green Legacy,” is under the banner of the National Green Development program and started during the country’s rainy season i.e. between May and October .

“Over the past years Ethiopia’s forest coverage has decreased (in recent years) and the initiative is set mobilize national reforestation at 40 trees per head,” the PM’s office said in a social media post at the time.

PM Abiy Ahmed held discussions with national agri transformation leaders in Adama city on their role & responsibilities in modernizing the sector. He called upon them to champion the National Green Dev’t Program which aims to plant 4billion trees during the rainy season. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/Beoaqw3VmW

— Office of the Prime Minister – Ethiopia (@PMEthiopia) May 26, 2019

Abiy Ahmed. Millions of Ethiopians across the country were invited to take part in the challenge and within the first six hours, Ahmed tweeted that around 150 million trees had been planted.

#GreenLegacy is a vision for the next generation. It is creating a blueprint for them and showing them the way. #GreenEthiopia #HealthyEthiopia 🇪🇹 pic.twitter.com/TFudQhiAKc

— Amir Aman, MD (@amirabiy) July 29, 2019

“We’re halfway to our goal,” he said and encouraged Ethiopians to “build on the momentum in the remaining hours.” After the 12-hour period ended, the Prime Minister took to Twitter again to announce that Ethiopia not only met its “collective #GreenLegacy goal,” but exceeded it.

Read: Baobab trees have more than 300 uses but they’re dying in Africa

A total of 353,633,660 tree seedlings had been planted, the country’s Minister for Innovation and Technology, Getahun Mekuria, Tweeted.

BREAKING NEWS!!

ETHIOPIA PLANTED
353,633,660 TREE SEEDLINGS IN 12Hours#GreenLegacyEthiopia#PMOEthiopia pic.twitter.com/TewfqNzXMN

— Dr.-Ing. Getahun Mekuria (@DrGetahun) July 29, 2019

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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

Currently as it stands Ethiopia claims to have broken India’s 66 million trees planting record set in 2017. It is not yet clear if the Guinness World Records is monitoring Ethiopia’s the mass planting scheme but the Prime Minister’s office said specially developed software is helping with the count.