Citizens Urged to Gear Up for Planting 600 Million Saplings Overnight

Addis Ababa: The Government Communication Service (GCS) has called on citizens to gear up for the nationwide tree planting campaign scheduled to plant 600 million tree saplings this coming Friday.In a press briefing today, Government Communication Service State Minister Selamawit Kassa said citizens should effectively participate in the single day saplings planting campaign.Recall that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed called on the public to plant 600 million saplings in one night as part of the Green Legacy Initiative (GLI) last week.Ethiopia has been diligently pursuing an annual planting program during the past five years under the Green Legacy Initiative initiated by the prime minister.State Minister Selamawit explained that the Green Legacy Initiative has become a grand national program to mitigate climate-induced impacts.According to her, the initiative has enabled Ethiopia to gain international reputation, where the East African nation is registering national success through involving millions of ci tizens across the country.In addition to increasing the forest coverage of the country, the state minister noted that the Green Legacy Initiative has made it possible to bring about real economic and social development.Likewise, it is a great national task which has been greatly helping Ethiopia's efforts in mitigating climate change impacts, Selamawit said, adding that it set Ethiopia as exemplary to many other countries.To this effect, the overnight saplings planting program is going to be held in all parts of the country, it was learned.Noting that Ethiopians have been able to achieve great things, especially when they stand together for a common goal, the state minister stressed that there is no more recent example than the Green Legacy Initiative to achieve this in practice.'This is something to be proud of as a citizen,' she noted.Emphasizing the significance of the initiative, Selamawit called on adults to plant over 20 saplings each and teenagers more than 10.Pursuant to the country's am bitious plan of planting 50 billion trees by 2026, Ethiopia has already planted 6.9 billion saplings so far in this rainy season.Source: Ethiopian News Agency