The Ethiopian government has announce a truly extraordinary record , claim the nation ’s citizensplanted 353 million treesin 12 hours , crush a 200 million tree target . The previous record for a single nation was 66 million , by India , a res publica three time as gravid with 13 clock time the population .
to begin with this month a theme inScienceoffered a rare glimmering of climate Leslie Townes Hope . The authors used orbiter data of canopy reportage and soil maps to calculate the Earth has 9 million substantial kilometers ( 3.5 million solid Roman mile ) of land suited to being planted with trees and not currently afforest , urban or used for crops . Once grown , these trees would store 205 billion t ( 225 billion tons ) of atomic number 6 , two - thirds of the carbon humans have released since the Industrial Revolution .
So how does Ethiopia ’s sweat stack up ? The carbon storage potential of trees motley enormously by species of class , as well as the conditions in which they are grown . The Science newspaper estimated , however , that it would take 500 billion Tree to cover the declare oneself area . assume an ( affirmative ) 50 per centum survival pace for the planted seedling , the world take to repeat this feat almost 3,000 times .
The task had local motivations as well , however . An environmental nose count a few years ago reported just 4 per centum of Ethiopia was incubate by woods . At the start of the 20th century , it was 35 percent . That departure has contributed to erosion and desertification , made droughts and floods more extreme and deprived threatened species of home ground . Deforestation contributed to the dread shortage of the 1980s .
Ethiopia has experienced some of the most rapid economical benefit in late yr , as well as make progress on human rights , but ethnic tension have risen with near to a million mass fly their menage for fear of wildness . It is hoped widespread participation in the planting course of study will give Ethiopians a mutual purpose . The government has set a target of 4 billion trees institute this season , and claim to have already reached more than half of that goal .
Even 9 million satisfying kilometers of tree cover is no get out of pokey free card for clime catastrophe . If we keep burn off fossil fuels at the current rate we will undo all that good in 22 year . Moreover , the paper noted it take 10 to century for Tree to reach their full storage capacity , and higher temperature will make some of the identified areas unsuitable for supporting trees .
On our current trajectory a quarter of the identified arena will be unable to back up tree diagram by 2050 , so we need to get started with both the planting and discharge step-down tight . In particular , the3 trillionexisting trees will need to be keep from therampant deforestationstill underway in many region . Ethiopia has flip down the challenge .
