SOS Sahel community tree planting project. Near Hawassa, Southern Nation, Natonalities and Peoples’ Region, Ethiopia. Credit: Aaron Minnick

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Table of contents:

• Follow up 
  • Bostwana’s family feud, election edition
• What everyone is talking about
  • Ethiopia sets new tree-planting record to tackle #ClimateChange
• What we are talking about
  • Mozambique’s pre-election peace deal
• Continental health corner
  • Creeping drug resistance
• Hear this word
  • Who fears Stella Nyanzi?
• If you’ve got time, read these! 

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Free segment: What everyone is talking about

Ethiopia sets new tree-planting record to tackle #ClimateChange 

The essentials: Ethiopians headed out en masse last week to plant a record-breaking number of trees. More than 353 million seedlings were put into the soil across the country, according to government officials. That number surpasses India’s mass reforestation feat in 2017 by over 300,000.

The background: Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed joined members of his Republican Guard, workers and students all around Ethiopia to plant the seedlings. Over 70 million trees were planted in the Amhara region alone. The reforestation campaign is part of Abiy’s ambitious Green Legacy Project. The aim is to plant 4 billion trees by the end of the rainy season and make Ethiopia a green society.

Ethiopia, particularly, is taking big steps to address the climate crisis due to the massive loss of its forests. Forest cover shrunk to 4% in the 2000s from about 33% a century before. The country is drought-prone and some areas have experienced severe food shortages. Flash floods have forced many from their homes.

The good: Ethiopia is one of the few countries walking the talk on climate action. We have only 10 years to meet international climate targets that require reforesting 1.35 million square miles of the earth’s surface. Ethiopia’s #GreenLegacy movement will likely spur more countries to attempt mass tree-plantings.  Collective action like this would significantly reduce carbon emissions, not to mention save a good number of vulnerable species. The Green Project doesn’t look bad on  Abiy’s politics either. The initiative united the nation in a common cause despite recent ethnic tensions in some regions, including an apparent coup attempt.

The bad: Environment analysts say massive reforestation efforts like this one may cause even more problems for the planet. Planting certain trees in non-indigenous areas may damage the soil and destroy habitats. It is not clear if tree types were tailored to the locations where they would survive and aid other organisms.

The future: Will more countries attempt to break Ethiopia’s record? Likely. If this becomes a trend, we wholeheartedly endorse it.

• Official Source: WE DID IT ETHIOPIA! (Office of the Prime Minister)
• Ethiopia plants 350m trees in a day to help tackle climate crisis(Guardian)
• Planting millions more trees might not be the way to tackle Ethiopia’s environmental problems (QZ)
• Ethiopia PM launches 4 billion tree planting project, starting in Oromia (africanews)
• Ethiopia just planted 353 million trees in a single day (Fast Company)
• Ethiopia plants more than 350 million trees in a day (Al Jazeera)
• Ethiopia plants 353 million trees in one day to restore forests and fight climate change (Yahoo News)
• Why Green Pledges Will Not Create the Natural Forests We Need (Yale Environment)

Discuss with @Shollytupe on Twitter