Captain Shiferaw Gebre Woldesemayat, a retired Ethiopian Airlines pilot, was recently spotted driving around Addis Ababa with jerry cans filled with water in his car to put his words into action to the Green Legacy initiative.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s mass tree planting initiative, dubbed ‘Green Legacy,’ conducted during the previous rainy season has inspired individuals like Captain Shiferaw who is ambitious to provide continuous care from planting to raising.
That is why Shiferaw, who served Ethiopian for 37 year, moves around the capital carrying jerry cans to water the seedlings planted with wide public mobilization. He says the Green Legacy initiative has won the hearts and minds of the people across the country. “A large number of people took part in the initiative to break the world record of planting a large number of trees in a single day,” he says.
Optimism by itself might not be enough to build a bright future. It needs continuous commitment and integrated action. “Hence, taking part in the massive tree plantation campaign by itself is not sufficient. The public should rather take conservation as the most important part of the initiative to realize green and clean environment,” he tells The Ethiopian Herald.
Captain Shiferaw says that the reason why he takes watering the seedlings around Bole Mikael to Wollo Sefer areas in the capital as his own initiative and responsibility is the commitment that he has to play his own part for the legacy. Hence he has been watering the seedlings for the past three months.
Indeed, Ethiopians have planted over 4.27 billion seedlings in one million hectares of land. But the nurturing of the seedlings would be a potential challenge. According to the Environment, Forest, and Climate Change Commission, the public have shown active participation during the tree planting campaign and planted over 350 million saplings in a single day. But the effort to provide continuous care for the seedlings is not encouraging.
Teshome Tamerat, (PhD) Senior Forestry Expert at the commission tells The Ethiopian Herald that the Commission has sent a team of experts to the field to assess the situation of the seedlings. According to the team’s report, only 10 percent of the seedlings planted during the rainy season have been receiving continuous care. Protective fences have not been constructed and most of the young trees are invaded with weeds.
Research indicates that forests have a 12 percent share for the country’s GDP. “But if we conserve the forests well, we can increase its share” he adds. In Ethiopia, there is feasible forestry policy and proclamation that creates good opportunities to conserve, manage and utilize the plant but the ineffective organizational structure at the federal and regional level and insufficient budget allocation remain to be major challenges in the utilization of forest resources.
The Ethiopian Herald, November 28/2019
BY MULATU BELACHEW
Photo: Hadush Abreha
