Ethiopia Plants 805 Million Seedlings in Single Day Record

Ethiopia conducted a massive nationwide tree-planting campaign on August 3, 2026, resulting in the planting of approximately 805.3 million seedlings in a single day. Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, announced that 26.2 million citizens and foreign nationals participated in the event under the theme "Let Us Plant Hope."

This effort is a central component of the Green Legacy Initiative, a reforestation program launched by Abiy Ahmed in 2019 to combat climate change, restore degraded landscapes, and expand forest cover. The government aims to plant more than 8 billion seedlings during the current rainy season, with 6.5 billion already planted this Ethiopian year. The overarching goal of the initiative is to plant 50 billion trees since its inception.

Government officials framed the campaign as a vital step toward building a green, lower-middle-income economy by addressing environmental depletion. The Ethiopian Environmental Protection Authority highlighted the necessity of these measures, noting that while Ethiopia contributes only 0.04 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, it remains highly vulnerable to droughts and floods due to its reliance on rain-fed agriculture.