‘GREEN LEGACY’

Ethiopia Plants Record 350 Million Trees in Half a Day

Ethiopia plans to plant four billion trees between May and October in a citizen-led reforestation campaign.

Ethiopia planted more than 353 million trees in just 12 hours Monday as part of a nationwide reforestation campaign. Millions of Ethiopians were asked to take part in the challenge and, within the first six hours, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said 150 million trees had been planted. Government officials said that, by the 12-hour mark, 353,633,660 tree seedlings had been put in the ground. Ethiopia’s goal for the whole rainy season, between May and October, is to plant four billion trees. The effort Monday is believed to be a world record—in 2017, India set the record when around 1.5 million volunteers planted 66 million in 12 hours. A recent study estimated that restoring the world’s lost forests could remove two-thirds of all carbon in the atmosphere because of human activity.