Reforestation program will restore one-sixth of the territory of Ethiopia

For 15 years, the villages near Abrha Weatsbha, in northern Ethiopia were close to being abandoned. The slopes of the mountains were naked and communities, devastated by drought and floods, needed constant food aid.

Currently, Weatsbha, Western Abrha Tigray, is unrecognizable and an environmental disaster was avoided by planting millions of trees and shrubs. The wells were dry have water again, the soil is more nutritious and the valleys and slopes of the mountains are green again.

The reforestation of the area, achieved in a few years and with low cost, resulting from the joint work of the communities, they spared water, have created unique and pastures were replanted trees, will be now replicated in about one-sixth of the territory of Ethiopia, an area equivalent to the size of England and Wales. The more ambitious targets of this plan of afforestation is to reduce soil erosion and increase food security.

"Large areas of Ethiopia and the Sahel have been devastated by successive droughts and excessive grazing of animals during the years 1960 and 1970", indicates Chris Reij, investigator of the World Resources Institute in Washington, cites the Guardian. "There was a significant decrease of rainfall and the people had to increase the cultivated areas, which caused destruction of land and an environmental crisis throughout the region of the Sahel. But the experience in Tigray, where more than 224,000 hectares of land have been restored reveals that the recovery of the vegetation of dry zones can be a quick process, "adds the researcher.

Rather than plant only trees, which is impractical and expensive in dry areas, farmers have adopted ecological forms of agriculture, too, which combine crops and trees in the same parts of Earth.

In the region of Tigray, the recovery of the land involved the construction of miles of walls and levees for retain water from heavy rains on the slopes of the mountains, the closure of bare land to allow natural regeneration of trees and vegetation and planting millions of seeds.

Now, until 2030, Ethiopia wants to restore 15 million hectares of land.

Foto: Rod Waddington/Creative Commons

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