Beyan Tesema is a Dire Dawa City resident, a city found in Eastern Ethiopia. He is a resident of Dire Dawa City for almost 36 years. On 29 July 2019 when all Ethiopians campaigned to break the world record by planting 200 million seedlings in 12 hours, Beyan alone planted 2,000 seedlings within 5 hours. This raises the total number of trees he planted since 2006 to 21,000. More than the number of trees he planted in the past 13 years, the reason that drove him to keep planting the trees is a stunning one.
In the summer of 2006, his hometown Dire Dawa was severely hit by a deadly flash flood that destroyed hundreds of houses and claimed the lives of thousands including his family members. Even Beyan was rescued after being taken away by the flood.
The accident devoured many lives and damaged a lot of properties. “The accident happened due to lack of protecting nature especially forests. Had the area been covered by forests, the accident may not happen and there was a possibility of minimizing the injury” said Beyan.
This engraved in my mind the role of trees for human beings. “Those who had trees near their home and in their surrounding were able to survive the flood. I learnt that if there are more trees around us it was possible to save many lives” he added.
Since then Beyan started an aggressive campaign of planting trees in Diredawa to prevent any possible occurrence of flood again.
“Conserving and planting trees becomes part of my life and I have planted over 200 thousand seedlings during the past 11 years”, Beyan said.
Beyan added that out of the 2000 seedling that he planted in six hours during the Ethiopian Green Legacy day this week he found 1,600 seedlings from the city administration and 400 seedlings supplying by himself.
Beyan has grown up 21 thousand trees since 2008 and covers a lot of area with his efforts and initiation to protect nature and prevent flood that devours many lives.
“The trauma was fresh in my mind when the government called on citizens to plant trees with a motto ‘two trees for a citizen” on the occasion of the Ethiopian Millennium on September 2008”, Beyan stated.
“At this time, I went to Dire Dawa Agriculture Bureau and told them I have a plan to plant 2000 trees during that campaign. They didn’t believe my words, but they gave me 2000 seedlings which I planted all in a single day.”
Following that time he made supplying seedlings in his forest garden and continued planting and caring for trees as his routine. He has so far planted over 200 thousand seedlings and over 21,000 trees are grown up during the past 11 years.
“I kept caring and protecting the trees continuously although a shortage of water was a problem during the initial time. I used pack animals to transport water for the seedlings.”
After ten years when the government of Ethiopia vowed to break the world record by planting 200 million trees in 12 hours, Beyan planned to beat his record by planting 2000 trees in seven hours.
“I planned to plant 2000 trees in seven hours during the green legacy day to break my record in 2008. I planted all the seedlings in six hours.”
According to him protecting nature means protecting the lives of human beings and make the area suitable for life. “Now, my focus is on planting indigenous trees like Wanza, Zigba and Besana as they are big trees and stay for many years, Beyan said.
For Beyan only planting trees is nothing, it is caring the planted seedlings to grow and protecting the available forest areas to bring change. He added that he is working on attitudinal change and awareness creation on the society on the benefit of plants and dense forest.
According
to him by protecting trees and make our area green it is possible
to minimize natural accidents and
disasters, it helps to save the life from flood and other hazards.
He also assured that he will continue planting and protecting trees up to his life and planting trees is more than a hobby for him, it is just destiny.
Planting trees should be the issue of all the efforts of the Ethiopian government to plant billions of trees in summer and millions in a day is appreciated and key for Ethiopia as its economy mainly depends on nature.
Just like Beyan many Ethiopians are also developing a habit of planting seedlings every summer and the Ethiopian government is working for that. On this summer Ethiopia plans to plant over four billion seedlings and so far planted over 3.5 billion.
On July 29/2019 Ethiopia has also broken the world record of planting more trees in a day by planting over 353 million trees where over 23 million people participated on the occasion.
The Ethiopian Herald August 3/2019
BY DARGIE KAHSAY
