Have you heard or read the news on Ethiopia planting 350 million trees in just 12 hours? Did they just break the World Record held in India which was 50.4 million trees within 24 hours in 2016?
According to Ethiopia's Minister for Innovation and Technology Getahun Mekuria, Ethiopians planted exactly 353,633,660 tree seedlings on July 26, 2019 for only just 12 hours as part of their #GreenLegacy.
The nationwide tree planting is an eco-challenge for Ethiopians designed as part of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's Green Legacy Initiative. The #GreenLegacy is a reforestation plan to address the massive tree loss in the country. According to an article in Atlas Obscura, "At the start of the 20th century, 30 percent of the country’s land was forested. Now, less than 4 percent of it is."
No official statement yet from Guinness World Records if Ethiopia broke a world record.
Ethiopia is not the only country which is experiencing rapid tree loss, in fact 10 African countries launched the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative in 2015. It aims to restore 386,000 square miles of the African continent by 2030.