Ethiopians dug in to help plant more than 350 million trees in the climate change-ravaged country on Monday, breaking the previous world record.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is leading the project, which aims to counter the effects of deforestation and climate change in the drought-prone country.
Some public offices have been shut down to allow civil servants to take part.
The UN says Ethiopia’s forest coverage declined from 35 per cent of total land in the early 20th Century to a little above 4 per cent in the 2000s.
Abiy launched the tree-planting exercise as part of his Green Legacy Initiative, which is taking place in 1,000 sites across the country.
“Today Ethiopia is set in our attempt to break the world record together for a #GreenLegacy,” Ahmed’s office tweeted earlier in the day.
The initiative, launched in May, aims to plant a total of 4 billion trees by year’s end.
Ethiopia’s rapidly growing population and lack of arable land pose a problem for the impoverished east African nation.
“In recent years environment has become a key issue in Ethiopia.
“The main environmental problems in the country include land degradation, soil erosion, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, desertification, recurrent drought, flood and water and air pollution,” the United Nations Development Programme says on their website.
Ethiopian officials were assigned to count the seedlings being planted by volunteers, reports BBC’s Kalkidan Yibeltal in the capital, Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia’s Minister of Innovation and Technology Getahun Mekuria tweeted that more than 350 million trees were planted in 12 hours.
Promotional videos have run on state media urging the public to plant and care for trees, our reporter says.
Staff from the United Nations, African Union and foreign embassies in Ethiopia have also been taking part in the exercise.
dpa/NAN, BBC reports
