Ever since his entrance to Arat- Kilo Palace, premier Abiy has been putting himself and Ethiopia in international media spotlight on several occasions: He become the youngest serving African leader, realized peace deal with Eritrea, gave half of his government’s ministerial posts to women, staged the most expensive fund raising dinner for his ambitious project to beautify Addis and now he launched a four billion tree planting campaign which is getting underway this summer.
Ethiopia being, by in large, an agrarian economy dependent on rain feed agriculture that is highly vulnerable to climate changes; Abiy’s 4 Billlion Tree Campaign could not be overstated. Besides experts are warning deforestation in Ethiopia needs a drastic and relentless measures: “At the moment we’re losing five times more forest than we’re planting, It’s a crisis situation in terms of natural resource management despite all the efforts by the government and mass mobilization of the community to [implement] reforestation and afforestation projects,” say experts.
As a part of this campaign Abiy has slated tomorrow, 29 July 2019, to be the day of yet another record smashing achievement. The local media has been urging the public for several days now to participate in the planting of 200 million saplings in a single day, tomorrow, 29 July 2019, expecting to break a world record so far held by India.
The national news Agency, ENA has quoted the Minister of Agriculture, Umar Hussen as saying the distribution of saplings, most of which are indigenous tree species for planting campaign was completed on Friday. Nationwide monitoring of planted saplings will be conducted to ensure that the planted saplings would grow into trees.
The monitoring would identify which seedlings have grown and where and which ones have died out or have been nourished by those who planted them, he added. The minister indicated that so far 2.6 billions of saplings have already been planted across the nation.
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition 28 July 2019
