Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed made a rallying call for active public participation in a bid to set a new national record for most tree planting in a day.
The latest push is a part of the green legacy initiative or GLI plan to plant at least 6 billion seedlings nationwide.
Over 500 million seedlings have been made ready to be planted in an attempt to set a tree-planting record in a 12-hour.
“Our objective is to break our own record,” Prime Minister Abiy said in a statement Sunday.
The previous national record of 350 million tree-planting in twelve hours spree was made four years ago. The PM expects the sum of each person’s efforts on Monday will lead to a new record.
This Monday was chosen to allow us to start the week with a contribution to climate change mitigation efforts, the PM noted.
Regions, zones, woredas, and villages are ready to plant more than last year and improve their own records, he said, adding each of us has to do the same “to break our own record.”
More than 55% of the 6.3 billion seedlings readied for planting this season are fruits and related tree species.
The green initiative helped to plant a total of 25 billion tree seedlings over the past three years through public mobilization. Authorities put the average survival rate of the planted seedlings at 84%.
In addition to reducing the deforestation rate, the impact of the GLI “could be equated to removing 64 million gasoline-powered cars from the roads for a whole year,” Abiy told Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) in January.
The East African nation plans to restore at least 22 million hectares of its degraded land by 2030.
