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Tuesday, August 6th, 2019

Ethiopia plants 350m trees in a day to help tackle climate crisis

Author:     Anna Ploszajski
Source:     The Guardian (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Mon 29 Jul 2019 12.03 EDT
 Link: Ethiopia plants 350m trees in a day to help tackle climate crisis
Stephan:   Here is some lovely good news from Ethiopia. The large scale planting of trees has the potential to affect the onrushing climate change. As I read this report I asked myself: Could you imagine Trump doing something like this, sponsoring this sort of policy. The answer was clear to me. No. I could not. Trump is already trying to do the opposite by reducing and destroying public land.

The prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, plants a tree in Addis Ababa.
Credit: Aron Simeneh

About 350m trees have been planted in a single day in Ethiopia, according to a government minister.

The planting is part of a national “green legacy” initiative to grow 4bn trees in the country this summer by encouraging every citizen to plant at least 40 seedlings. Public offices have reportedly been shut down in order for civil servants to take part.

The project aims to tackle the effects of deforestation and climate change in the drought-prone country. According to the UN, Ethiopia’s forest coverage was just 4% in the 2000s, down from 35% a century earlier.

Ethiopia’s minister of innovation and technology, Dr Getahun Mekuria, tweeted estimates of the number of trees planted throughout the day. By early evening on Monday, he put the number at 353m.

The previous world record for the most trees planted in one day stood at 50

Dr Dan Ridley-Ellis, the head […]

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1 Comment

  1. Rev. Dean on Tuesday, August 6, 2019 at 6:41 am

    I cannot figure out where they will get the water needed to feed these trees just to get them started. I understand how much they will save water supplies in the future, but in the beginning it will be quite a struggle finding water to get them started.