Ethiopia’s ‘green legacy’ is attracting the attention of global community
Under the initiative of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia has recently launched this year’s ‘green legacy’ campaign. Besides greening the environment, the campaign is expected to bring a change of outlook in terms of the environment. The Premier said “We can instill many positive values in children early on, including an outlook for environmental preservation, so they form a better relationship with nature. My family and I call upon all Ethiopians to plant their Green Legacy at the household level, observing COVID-19 prevention measures.”
As it was the case last year, this time around a number of international media outlets are giving coverage to Ethiopia’s ‘green legacy’ campaign. Ethiopia is working on planting five billion trees this year, part of an ambitious plan to plant 20 billion seedlings by 2024 to help build a green climate resistant economy. The initiative, started by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, follows the Green Legacy Challenge project that claimed to plant a record 353 million seedlings on a single day, and a total of four billion last year.
Quartz Africa, in its latest piece reported that but the campaign comes as Ethiopia faces a ballooning budget deficit and a growing government expenditure with dwindling foreign investment in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
The new expenditure is budgeted to cost the country over four billion Birr, ($117 million) which is believed to be a conservative estimate and is now expected to likely cost twice as much due to cost of plants in urban areas.
“The new initiative seems appealing from the outset and it is a good opportunity to raise forest coverage of the country, but the cost to plant and take a care of the trees should be taken into consideration when the government attempts to make such a plan a reality,” Adefris Worku, an environmentalist based in the capital told Quartz.
Quoting the Prime Minister, Quartz further said that up to 84 percent of the seedlings planted last year have survived and that more than 20 million people were mobilized throughout the country for the effort.
The initiative has been getting support from nations including Norway, Sweden and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as a way to help Ethiopia embrace a green agenda and help create sustainable local jobs.
The call to plant more trees is part of Ethiopia’s national “Green Legacy” initiative, which according to the prime minister’s office, aims to tackle deforestation and the effects of climate change by educating Ethiopians on the environment, and planting different “eco-friendly seedlings”. Perhaps more than other countries, severe droughts, food shortages, and flash floods responsible for mass displacements of people has made the effects of climate change especially felt in
the East African country.
Over 90% of the country’s estimated 110 million population obtain energy from biomass, but unsustainable harvest from natural forests resulted in the widening of the gap between supply and demand of forest.
Between 2007 and 2015, according to the Ethiopian Commission of Environment Forest and Climate Change, the nation imported 3.06 million meter cube of various industrial wood products, approximately worth $182.5 million.
Vatican news on the other hand reported that marking World Environment Day, Ethiopia’s leader launched a project that aims to plant 5 billion tree seedlings amid the enduring COVID-19 pandemic that has led to the drawing of parallels between the global health crisis and climate change.
Ethiopia finalized ground works to plant 5 billion trees during its rainy season that extends from June to September, setting World Environment Day as the day on which to flag-off a programme to combat desertification and make the nation greener.
This year’s initiative echoes a similar one last year called for by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed who asked his countrymen to plant 200 million acacia seedlings in a single day, shattering the world record.
Lessons have been learnt and Abiy, who is the 2019 Nobel Peace-prize Laureate, is determined to push forward with his “Green Legacy” campaign to promote ecotourism and transform Ethiopia into an environmentally friendly economy.
This year, experts have reportedly briefed officials on how to do a better job on seedling placement as well as explaining to citizens how afforestation will improve their lives.
They also point out that it shouldn’t be a one-day campaign that happens every year, but an approach that engages every citizen and community, wherever they are, all year-round.
Involving communities
Productive and sustainable plantation and rehabilitation projects are already in place in the Horn of Africa nation, delivering immediate and concrete benefits to those living nearby.
Such as the one promoted by the UN Development Programme in Buee District where constructed ponds offer herders an alternative water source for their cattle and residents have been given eucalyptus seedlings to plant near their homes so they’re not tempted to cut down the project’s acacia and silky oak trees.
The project’s nursery, meanwhile, employs 17 local women who earn roughly 50 US dollars per month, a good earning for the region.
Independent online has also given coverage to Ethiopia’s green plantation campaign. It reported that reported that the global coronavirus pandemic will not deter Ethiopia on its mission to plant 5 billion trees by the end of July.
“Despite #COVID-19, we are determined to plant the intended 5 billion trees,” he
tweeted on his official Twitter account, adding that planning was under way on how each household would “plant their print in a physically distanced manner,” it quoted the PM.
Officials said both government institutions and private businesses had prepared enough seedlings to be planted in the latest round.
Ethiopia’s rapidly growing population and lack of arable land pose a problem for the impoverished nation.
According to the United Nations, the environment has become a key issue in Ethiopia in recent years.
“The main environmental problems in the country include land degradation, soil erosion, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, desertification, recurrent drought, flood and water and air pollution,” the UN stated.
Anadolu Agency on its part reported People in the cosmopolitan city of Addis Ababa took to tree planting sites as Ethiopia launched its second season of a massive afforestation campaign.
Anadolu Agency made it to planting activities at the Millenium Park in one of the beautiful woody hills flanking the north eastern boundaries of the city.
Early in the morning, under a cloudy sky, men and women swarmed a steep landscape planting seedlings.
Aregash Zenebe, a woman in her 40s, had already planted four seedlings and resolved to do more till there is no more to plant.
“I came here very early, and I have already
planted four seedlings and will do so until all seedlings are planted. I know it is a very important undertaking. It is life,” she told Anadolu Agency.
“I wish I would be around to follow them up until they take roots, but I am a laborer with little time to spare. I hope the government will make sure they are nurtured and grow and thrive,” she said.
Holding a long-handled garden spade, another woman who did not want to be named for a reason she did not share, said: “Last year we planted seedlings at this same spot, but very few thrived.”
Addis Agonafir, an executive officer of District 5 in the Yeka sub-city, told Anadolu Agency that 20,000 tree seedlings will be planted at numerous blocks within the Millenium Park.
As part of the second season of the Green Legacy campaign, the city will plant 7 million tree seedlings during the rainy season, Takele Uma Benti — the young, innovative and energetic Deputy Mayor of Addis Ababa — said earlier.
The launching of the campaign this season coincided with the World Environment Day.
Incoming call sound of every mobile phone call today carries a short message by the prime minister, encouraging citizens to actively participate in the national greening drive.
For World Environment Day on 5 June, the Ethiopian government has announced plans to plant 5 billion seedlings during this year’s rainy season, as to the World Economic Forum.
The planting is part of the country’s Green Legacy Project, which aims to build a green and climate-resilient economy.
At the same time, the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has reminded people of their own vulnerabilities, explained the Prime Minister: “Our natural environment is an important determinant of human health.”
World Economic Forum further stated tree-planting projects have been introduced around the world. Pakistan, for example, paid people who’d lost their jobs as a result of pandemic to plant trees.
And, at the Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos this year, we launched an initiative to grow, restore and conserve 1 trillion trees around the world.
“Nature-based solutions – locking-up carbon in the world’s forests, grasslands and wetlands – can provide up to one-third of the emissions reductions required by 2030 to meet the Paris Agreement targets,” the Forum said at the time.
Further emissions reductions will be necessary from the heavy industry, finance and energy sectors.
But, scientists have cautioned that reforestation cannot be a substitute for lowering emissions:
“It’s definitely not a solution by itself to addressing current climate change,” NASA scientist Sassan Saatchi said last year. “To do that, we need to reduce human emissions of greenhouse gases. But it could still have some partial impact on our ability to reduce climate change,” she added.
The Ethiopian Herald Jun 18, 2020
BY STAFF REPORTER
