Ethiopians from all walks of life took part in a nationwide tree planting campaign on Friday with the aim of reaching a new milestone: planting 600 million saplings in a single day.

ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) — Ethiopians from all walks of life took part in a nationwide tree-planting campaign on Friday, aiming to reach a new milestone: planting 600 million saplings in a single day.

The nationwide planting campaign, which has the slogan “One nation that plants, one generation that endures,” is part of the East African country’s annual plan to plant an incredible 6.5 billion trees during the ongoing rainy season.

If the daily campaign is successful, it will set a new record, compared to a similar campaign on July 17 last year, when Ethiopians planted more than 566 million trees across the country in a single day, according to official figures.

Mahlet Solomon, a teacher in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, has been one of the active participants in the tree planting initiative for years. Solomon said she, along with other members of the school community, successfully planted 10 saplings in a protected area on the outskirts of Addis Ababa on Friday morning.

“Planting trees is a noble endeavor that helps protect our environment and restore our lost forests. This should be a priority for climate change adaptation efforts, not only in our country but globally,” Solomon told Xinhua shortly after her tree planting event.

Solomon also stressed the importance of maintaining a balanced focus in such initiatives, ensuring equal protection of the country’s existing forest areas and the survival of the newly planted seedlings.

According to the latest data from the Ethiopian government communication service, more than 402 million seedlings have been planted as of 2 p.m. local time as part of the campaign, which began at 6 a.m. local time. With the participation of around 19 million Ethiopians, around 161,000 hectares of land have been covered with tree seedlings as part of the campaign so far.

As Ethiopia prepares to combat desertification and address the negative impacts of climate change, a government-led, large-scale tree-planting initiative called the Green Legacy campaign has gained momentum in Africa’s second-most populous country.

With the tree-planting initiative resonating with Ethiopians from all walks of life, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said that with the completion of the nationwide tree-planting campaign on Friday, the country will have planted around 40 billion saplings since the launch of the Green Legacy initiative in 2019.

The Green Legacy initiative is part of the Ethiopian government’s ambition to restore the country’s depleted forest resources. It was launched about six years ago with the overarching goal of advancing the country’s ambition to build a green, lower-middle-income economy in the near future.

According to the Prime Minister, 50 percent of the saplings planted last year were used for food security, soil conservation and soil erosion control. He also called for strengthening the national tree planting movement to support water conservation efforts.

Experts often attribute the increasingly negative impacts of climate change in Ethiopia to rapidly increasing deforestation. Over the past few decades, Africa’s second most populous country has seen a significant decline in its once lush forest cover.

According to the Ethiopian Environmental Protection Agency (EEPA), although Ethiopia is responsible for only about 0.04 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the country is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, mainly due to its heavy dependence on rain-fed agriculture and natural resources, as well as its relatively low adaptive capacity.

Speaking to Xinhua recently, EEPA officials said the East African country is the most vulnerable to climate change and urgently needs to strengthen its resilience to climate change. As the negative impacts of climate change continue, heavy rains, floods and soil erosion are putting both urban and rural infrastructure at risk, especially for the vulnerable segment of Ethiopia’s population.

The Ethiopian government is also planning a large-scale tree planting initiative to support the country’s efforts to ensure food security, especially through the cultivation of edible crops.

Data from the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture also shows that about 60 percent of the 6.5 billion seedlings to be planted this rainy season will be multipurpose fruit tree seedlings, which are important both for improving the country’s food security and for commercial purposes.

As part of this year’s tree planting campaign, the ministry recently announced that the planting of the 6.5 billion saplings will take place mainly from June to September. It said the saplings would be grown in 132,144 nurseries across the country. ■