Media reports say Ethiopia planted more than 353 million trees in 12 hours on July 29, which officials believe is a world record.
The burst of tree planting was part of a wider reforestation campaign named "Green Legacy," spearheaded by the country's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, according to CNN.
Millions of Ethiopians across the country were reportedly invited to take part in the challenge and within the first six hours, Ahmed tweeted that around 150 million trees had been planted.
A total of 353,633,660 tree seedlings had been planted, the country's minster for innovation and technology, Getahun Mekuria, tweeted.
The national tree planting campaign reportedly aims to plant 4 billion trees during “the rainy season” — between May and October.
According to The Guardian, the project aims to tackle the effects of deforestation and climate change in the drought-prone country. According to the UN, Ethiopia’s forest coverage was just 4% in the 2000s, down from 35% a century earlier.
Citing agricultural officials, Al Jazeera reports that more than 2.6 billion trees have been planted in almost all parts of the East African nation so far.
