Ethiopia's annual greening campaign, the (GLI) has succeeded in the transplantation of over 714.7 million seedlings as planned. The cumulative effect of the massive greening program is likely to contribute immensely to diverse areas of the economy.
Restoration of degraded lands throughout the country is the primary focus of the program. As indicated by Ethiopian Forestry Development during the launching of the 2nd Regreening Africa project recently, land degradation remains a critical issue in Ethiopia, threatening biodiversity, food security and livelihoods, and is further exacerbated by climate change and increasing population pressure. In response, landscape restoration has become a national priority.
"Ethiopia has committed to restoring 22 million hectares of degraded land and forests by 2030, as pledged under the Bonn Challenge and the New York Declaration on Forests", Kebede said.
According to the Director the country has taken bold steps to meet these commitments through initiatives such as the Green Legacy Initiative, participation in the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100), and the Great Green Wall Initiative. These efforts reflect Ethiopia's determination to combat desertification, enhance food security, and build a more sustainable and resilient economy.
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In a significant move, Kebede reiterated, the Ethiopian government recently launched the Green Legacy and Degraded Landscape Restoration Special Fund, allocating 0.5% to 1% of the annual federal revenue. This demonstrates the government's strong commitment to addressing land degradation.
The Regreening Africa project aligns closely with Ethiopia's national strategies for a green and resilient future. It aims to strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity through Regreening and restoration. Moreover, it will contribute to achieving both national and regional restoration goals.
He further expressed the governments firm believed that beyond the plantation of seedlings the program would help rehabilitate ecosystems but also empower communities, improve food security, & create a more sustainable future for all.
Alongside restoring the degraded lands the greening campaign also helps the country to benefit economically through assisting the functioning of other sectors.
The greening campaign duly supports Ethiopia's active participation in carbon trading through generating revenue from the sale of carbon credits earned by reducing deforestation and promoting afforestation. In this regard the Green Legacy Initiative has been instrumental in attracting international partnerships and financing for carbon trading.
Ethiopia is also developing a national carbon market framework to further regulate and facilitate carbon-trading activities. Therefore, raising the country's forest coverage can directly be associated both with sources of edible items as well as considerable finance that can raise the economic status of citizens as well as the nation.
It can be recalled that the country's forest coverage lingered to as low as 3 per cent for decades when the country was notoriously known for being victim of recurrent draught and draught induced famine.
Through the sporadic greening activities that took place under the various regimes, the forest coverage was able to rise up to 15 % which still staggered to deliver the desired environmental and economic outcome.
But following the aggressive and massive seedling transplantation program, the Green Legacy Initiative, was launched in 2019 Ethiopia was able to plant about 40 billion seedlings throughout the years. As a result, the country has managed to increase its forest cover to 23.6 percent, which has helped the country sign multiple memoranda of understanding with various bilateral and multilateral partners, including the World Bank, Kebede told local media on April this year.
Accordingly, at the current level of the country's forest coverage, it is able to sign carbon-trading agreements worth 70 million U.S. dollars with various countries and international institutions.
Mekonnen Solomon, Horticulture Export Coordinator at Ministry of Agriculture, told The Ethiopian Herald that green legacy has multifaceted benefits for Ethiopia as a nation and the world by large. It has highly contributed for the decreasing of global warming in a significant amount. The reduction in polluted gases in the cities can be mentioned as an implication of this effect. People are bearing witness that they used to breathe hardly while driving or walking earlier; but recently, they are feeling better due to the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that resulted from the reforestation.
Nowadays, tree plantation, especially edible fruits, has become habit of the people across the country. In Holeta, a city located in the western outskirt of Addis Ababa, for example, people have planted strawberry, the plant that naturally fixes carbon, as a part of the green legacy initiative and observed the difference in air condition in addition to its dietary benefit, Mekonnen said.
Water shade stabilization in previously drained mountainous areas is also the outcome the green legacy has brought to the people. They could get more arable lands for the fact that erosion is meaningfully mitigated as a result of tree plantation that enables the land hold more water. It increases surface water which makes it easily accessible for irrigation on top of other uses.
The other benefit of green legacy, as to Mekonnen, is diversification of trees including fruit plants. Some plants that are disappeared and fell under risk of extinction due to the climate change and expansion of desert, have revived. The plants are regenerating by themselves when gaining rain. This is a result of reforestation that becomes real due to the green legacy initiative. For this, fruit diversification has become tangible in many parts of the country.
Initially, the green legacy was simply focusing on any kind of trees; lately, however, edible fruits have been given significant attention so that remarkable amount of fruit seedlings have been planted that greatly contributes for the effort to ensure food security. By planting various kinds of fruits, people in the rural and urban areas have become economically benefited, he added.
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Benefits of the tree plantation, according to Mekonnen, is diversified that include increasing production and productivity of the farmers through minimizing soil erosion and availing additional farm land which was barren earlier because of lack of water.
Coffee cultivators are also benefited from the green legacy by applying intercropping mechanism that gives them chance to plant coffee seedlings under the shades of big trees. Coffee bears more yields when planted under the trees. Farmers that are engaged in coffee plantation gain more economic benefits by marketing the cash crop with better price, Mekonnen said.
Moreover, implementation of the green legacy has begun to make people residing in different areas like in Bale Zone, Oromia Region, get direct financial benefit from carbon trading. Their income from the carbon trading depends on the surface areas the trees' shade covers. This implies that the more the green legacy is expanded the more the farmers are benefited.
So that intensifying green legacy initiative brings about multifaceted economic, environmental and social benefits in addition to its contribution to global climate change mitigation activity.
BY BACHA ZEWDE
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 1 AUGUST 2025
