Ethiopia launched the second phase of the Green Legacy Initiative this week with different assortments. The first phase of the initiative was successfully completed in 2022 during the rainy season planting 25 billion seedlings. In this second phase, the country set a target to repeat the first round success by planting the same number of seedlings (25 billion seedlings).
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) on the occasion made the following speech.
‘Let’s plant our future today’…this is the theme for the beginning of the second phase of the Green Legacy Initiative which we launched today. Following a successful first phase in which we planted 25 billion seedlings, in the second phase Ethiopia will plant another 25 billion.
Green Legacy is a legacy for generations to come. It’s our local approach to tackling climate change and environmental degradation. It is one of our means of creating job opportunities. And it is also one means of enabling food security through planting edible seedlings.”
Minister of Agriculture Girma Amente (PhD), on the other hand, gave a brief outline of the plan.
“In 2019, we planned to plant four billion seedlings but planted 4.7 billion seedlings, in 2020 the plan raised to five billion seedlings and secured 5.9 billion, in 2021 it was set to plant six billion seedlings and planted 6.8 billion and during the final year of phase one, Ethiopia planted 7.4 billion seedlings surpassing the target to plan six billion seedlings.
The plan for the first year of the phase-II initiative is to plant 6.5 billion and I am hopeful the target would be achieved and people throughout the country would mobilize to achieve the initiative.”
Addis Ababa City Mayor Adanech Abiebie took the opportunity to urge city residents to contribute share for the success of the initiative.
‘Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched the second phase Green Legacy Initiative and the 2023 plantation season in Afar State with the motto of ‘Let’s plant our future today’.
“6.5 billion Seedlings would be planted in this rainy season. I called the residents of Addis Ababa City to actively participate in this plantation season”
President of Afar State Awol Arba numerated benefits of the program.
The Green Legacy initiative plays a vital role in combating climate change and its undesirable impacts. The initiative is also an important step to curb the environmental and economic challenges happening due to the continuous deforestation especially in the lowland and pastoralist areas. Investing in planting trees would help to control recurrent droughts occuring in the pastoralist areas in our country.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 10 JUNE 2023
