ETHIOPIA AIMS TO PLANT 4 BILLION TREES
(Posted 31st May 2019)
(Yours truly seen planting a tree on Mt. Kenya, one of the hundreds planted over the past decades)
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has launched a nation wide tree planting campaign, aiming to plant as many as 4 billion trees across the country.
Forest cover, once as extensive as covering more than a third of Ethiopia, has today fallen to critical levels, said to be only in the 13 percent region.
This has affected the micro climate, led to significantly lower rain absorption capacity of the soil and is, if not checked now, going to bring catastrophic consequences in the medium to long term.
Nearly 175.000 US Dollars were raised last week during a gala dinner with the Prime Minister in attendance though the budget estimated to accomplish this massive task is more like in the 300 million US Dollar region.
It is expected that development partners will help fund a significant percentage of the expenditure in support of Ethiopia playing their own role to fight climate change.
No timeline has been set when the task is expected to be completed.
