Egypt launches campaign to plant 1 M trees nationwide

CAIRO – 22 November 2019: The Egyptian government launched the first phase of afforestation campaign with planting one million trees in the public gardens, according to a statement from the Cabinet on Thursday,

The trees would be planted on an area of 2,700 feddans (one feddan equals 1.03 acre) in the public parks nationwide to make up for trees cut by humans and to reduce air pollutants, said Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad in the Cabinet meeting.

She added that the campaign will be carried out in cooperation with the concerned bodies and an area of 100 feddans will be cultivated by trees in every governorates.

The criteria of trees that would be planted will depend on some factors; the trees should consume less water, be easily maintained, be resilient to climate change impacts and absorb great amount of pollutants, she said.

The ministry of Environment had already established 34 forests over an area of 12,000 feddans in 17 governorates. In addition to this, it established a botanical garden in Sharm Sheikh City, South Sinai, the ministry said.

It announced in a statement on Wednesday that Qalyubia district of Shubra el-Kheima was planted with 3,500 trees.


A street in Shubra el-Kheima was planted with trees- press photo


In September 2019, the ministry launched a green-roof initiative to increase flora area nationwide. The roof will be planted with ornamentals, medical and aromatic plants, the minister said. Green roofs provide the individuals with oxygen they need and reduce pollution.

Moreover, a study was published by Science in July and revealed that the universe has to cultivate 1 billion hectares of trees to help curb carbon dioxide emissions globally and limit the impacts of climate change.

Scientists estimated that growing 0.9 billion trees can absorb 25 percent of carbon dioxide, saying “We estimate that if we cannot deviate from the current trajectory, the global potential canopy cover may shrink by ~223 million hectares by 2050, with the vast majority of losses occurring in the tropics. Our results highlight the opportunity of climate change mitigation through global tree restoration but also the urgent need for action.”

Egypt is one of the African countries that announced to plant millions of trees to mitigate the climate change. Late July 2019, Ethiopia planted more than 350 million trees in only 12 hours. In addition, Kenya announced that it would cultivate 20 million trees around its highland forests.