I recently came across this story of reforestation:

“Ethiopia may have set a world record by planting 350 million trees in 12 hours on Monday as part of its plan to fight climate change and deforestation.

The effort is part of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s “Green Legacy” campaign to plant four billion trees between May and October this year to restore Ethiopia’s landscape.

“Today Ethiopia is set in our attempt to break the world record together for a green legacy,” the prime minister’s office wrote on Twitter Monday morning.

Reports state that the “campaign wants every Ethiopian to plant 40 seedlings during the rainy season, which runs from May to October. In the end, the country will have 4 billion indigenous trees to help mitigate the effects of the global climate crisis.”

India currently holds the world record for the most trees planted in a single day after 800,000 volunteers planted more than 50 million trees in 2016, the BBC reports.

Bus driver Bekele Benti told reporters his work allows him to see the effects of deforestation all over the Ethiopian countryside.

“As a bus driver, with frequent trips across the country, I have witnessed the extent of deforestation in different parts of Ethiopia. It’s really frustrating to see forest-covered areas turned to be bare lands within a few years,” he said.

The website for the office of the prime minister says the campaign is a way to get the public involved in solving environmental problems.”

There are quite a few comments on the story, questioning whether these trees will survive.

If they are planted with the advent of the rainy season – which they were – they should establish just fine. Trees are often planted in tropical climates as the rainy season starts, which allows them to be grown without supplemental irrigation. By the time the weather dries out, they are well-rooted in the soil.

I applaud tree planting efforts in general. Let’s hope the natives don’t cut them all down again in a few years. It’s one thing to plant trees – it’s another thing to keep them.

*Image at top via Office of the Prime Minister, Ethiopia