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Ethiopian officials believe they set a world record on Monday by planting more than 200 million trees in a single day.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed led Monday’s effort which is aimed at countering the effects of deforestation and climate change in Ethiopia. The effort is part of his Green Legacy Initiative, which is taking part in 1,000 places across the drought-prone country.
Public offices were closed to allow civil servants to participate in the project.
According to the statistics from the United Nations, Ethiopia’s forest coverage declined massively from 35% of total land in the early 20th Century to a little above 4% in the 2000s.
Ethiopia’s Minister of Innovation and Technology Getahun Mekuria says the goal is to plant a total of four billion trees.
The current world record for planting trees in a single day is held by India, which used 800,000 volunteers to plant more than 50 million trees in 2016.
