Yahoo News 7 Dec 07;
Star tree-planter Ethiopia will intensify its re-afforestation drive in 2008, which earned the country a pole position in the world for planting 700 million trees this year, an official said Thursday.
The state-run Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) said the mass tree-planting campaign would help reduce land degradation and improve biodiversity in the impoverished African nation.
"At this moment, Ethiopia has a very small percentage of forest-covered land. It continues to suffer from soil erosion, dryness of streams, floods (when it rains), and droughts (when it doesn't)," said EPA chief Tewolde-Berhan Gebre-Egziabher.
Government bodies, schools, private firms and local communities that together drove Ethiopia to the top of this world this year, are expected to get down to a new tree-planting scheme set for June next year.
"By planting more trees and restricting free grazing, we'll improve the existing biodiversity and tackle the environmental challenges," Tewolde-Berhan explained.
Last month, the UN Environment Programme said Ethiopia had planted more than 700 million trees in 2007, besting Mexico which planted 217 million and the rest of the world in a drive to combat climate change through new lush forest projects.
"Our aim is to undertake such projects annually. The country is five times the size of France, so the 700 million planted this year are not sufficient and we need more millions," said Seyoum Bereded, the chief of the re-afforestation committee.
Ethiopia's high demand for fuel wood and land for cropping and grazing has slashed its forest cover from about 35 percent of its landmass in the early 20th century to just 4.2 percent by 2000, environmentalists say.
Home to about 70 million people, Ethiopia has suffered from devastating drought and floods in the recent years, with experts pointing at activities that have altered the climate pattern.
The Addis Ababa pledge comes as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, a panel of climate gurus and governments, meet in Indonesia to negotiate pollution cuts to be implemented after 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol pledges run out.
Experts say that trees help absorb carbon contained in the heat-trapping gases blamed for climate change, which are largely generated by human activity and are one of the most perilous environmental challenges in the modern world.
