Ethiopia’s current forest cover report pursues international standards: Forestry Dev’t

Addis Ababa, June 23, 2024 (FBC) – Ethiopian Forestry Development Director-General, Kebede Yimam announced that the recently declared national Forest Cover report was done in accordance with international standards.

Ethiopia’s forest cover report increased to 23.6 percent by 2023 from 17.2 percent in 2019, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed revealed during the Green Legacy Initiative pre-launch program held on Friday.

Recall that natural forest landscapes in Ethiopia have disappeared at a rapid rate, which were 40 percent of the country’s landmass in the beginning of 20th century and declined into 3 percent.

For the past five years, Ethiopia has diligently pursued an annual planting program under the Green Legacy Initiative, initiated by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in 2019.

Ethiopian Forestry Development Director-General, Kebede Yimam said Ethiopia’s forestry development has been studied together with internationally experienced institutions.

The director-general mentioned various global institutions which participated in the study including International Forestry Research Center, Center for Tropical Agriculture, Wondo Genet Forestry and Natural Resources College and Ethiopian Space Science and Geospatial Institute.

According to Kebede, the research process on Ethiopian forest cover precisely employed the criteria of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The standards emphasize that the area of ​​the land for the trees should not be less than 500 square meters, their height should not be less than two meters and their branches should cover not less than 10 percent of the land.

Based on the standards, Ethiopia’s Forest Cover report has been validated by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the director-general pointed out.

He has confirmed that Ethiopia’s forest cover has reached 23.6 percent by measuring the aforementioned criteria.

He mentioned that modern technological application was employed during the study to calculate the forest cover and experts with high knowledge of GIS and Remote Sensing were involved, as reported by ENA.

Ethiopia’s Forest Cover report was launched, followed by the premiere of an international documentary film that captures the essence and impact of this significant national initiative through human stories.

In his remarks, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed emphasized the need to continue building on this progress.

“A paradigm and mindset shift is needed for the change we want to see in our Green Legacy endeavors. Our goal for this year is to reach 40 million seedlings, which means we need to collectively plant 7.5 billion seedlings this planting cycle,” he posted on his social media channels on Friday.