August 05, 2019

What the world can learn from Ethiopia’s Green Legacy Initiative

topic:	Nature
located:	Ethiopia
editor:	Bob Koigi

The record-breaking mass tree planting exercise recently conducted in Ethiopia and championed by the Prime Minister Ahmed Abiy has inspired new greening efforts across the world, which is currently plagued by droughts, flooding, soil erosion and extreme weather conditions as humanity pays for wanton destruction of forests.

Under the Green Legacy initiative – where the second most populous country in Africa seeks to restore its landscape – Ethiopians managed to plant over 350 million trees in 12 hours, breaking the 2017 India record where 66 million trees were planted within 12 hours.

For Ethiopia, as is the case with most African countries, agricultural activities, which provide income for 80 percent of the population, have ironically been responsible for land degradation that has taken a toll on crop production and fanned the hunger cycle. The forest cover has dwindled at alarming rates and countries haven’t made considerable efforts to attain the 10 percent forest cover as recommended by the United Nations.

Yet simple practices like reforestation can go a long way in offsetting the carbon that human activity has pumped into the atmosphere, which is estimated at 10 billion tons each year according to researchers.

A recent study indicated that planting 500 billion trees could remove one-fourth of the carbon in the atmosphere. It is encouraging to see countries like China, one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, championing one of the largest reforestation campaigns. In Africa, the Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative is taking shape and has inspired actions like those in Ethiopia.

But expanding our forest cover is not an event but a process that should be guided by political will and commitment across the board. Metrics should be put in place to measure individual countries’ progress while holding governments to account on their pledge to support tree-planting drives. Considering the devastating impacts of climate change, our saving grace will be restoring our forest cover, one tree at a time.

(Image: Office of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia)

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