Ethiopia breaks own record by planting 560 million trees in a day

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said 34 million Ethiopians came out on Monday to plant trees in over 300,000 hectares of land nationwide.

Ethiopia says it managed to plant more than 560 million trees in just a day, which if verified will be a new world record.

The country’s previous record was 350 million trees planted in a day – a feat it achieved in August 2019.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed led the tree planting campaign on Monday in an effort to restore the country’s forest cover and tackle climate change.

In a tweet, he said 34 million Ethiopians planted trees across over 300,000 hectares of land nationwide . They included children, the elderly and persons with disabilities.

“”How beautiful we are when we work together for success,” he said.

Ethiopia aims to restore the country’s forest cover which has declined from 35% of total land at the end of the 19th century to nearly 4% in the 2000s, according to the UN.

The current world record of trees planted in a day is held by India after more than 800,000 people planted 50 million trees in 2016 in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.