# Green Legacy Initiative (Ethiopia)

> Ethiopian government mass seedling-planting campaign launched in 2019

Source: https://treerm.org/org/ethiopia-green-legacy-initiative · Updated 2026-11-07 · Data license: CC BY 4.0 (https://treerm.org/about#license)

## Facts

- Type: Government program
- Scope: National
- Headquarters: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
- Founded: 2019
- Website: https://www.pmo.gov.et
- Countries where they plant: Ethiopia
- Activity types: Afforestation (primary), Reforestation, Agroforestry, Nurseries & seedlings
- Trees on record: 47,000,000,000 (larger of latest cumulative figure and sum of annual figures; trees planted or distributed)

## About

The Green Legacy Initiative is a national tree-planting program of the Government of Ethiopia, led by the Office of the Prime Minister and launched in June 2019. Each rainy season it mobilises millions of citizens to plant seedlings raised in government and community nurseries, including single-day planting events that the government reported at 714.7 million seedlings on 31 July 2025. The government reports cumulative totals in the tens of billions of seedlings and a target of 50 billion by 2026. Planting and survival figures are government-reported and have not been independently verified at national scale; local studies report survival rates ranging from about 40% to 80%.

## Metrics

> Note: The totals here are the Ethiopian government's own counts of seedlings planted, reported after each rainy-season campaign since 2019. No independent body has verified the national figure. Field studies at sampled sites have measured survival between roughly 40% and 80%, so the number of trees standing is lower than the number planted. Treat the figure as a measure of planting effort, not of forest.

| Metric | Year | Value | Cumulative | Program | Confidence | Source |
|---|---|---:|---|---|---|---|
| Trees planted | 2025 | 714,700,000 | no (that year) | organization-wide | Self-reported | [source](https://www.ena.et/web/eng/w/eng_7056654) Ethiopian News Agency (state media), 31 July 2025: '714.7 million tree seedlings were planted in a single day'. Single-day figure, not the full 2025 season (season target was 7.5 billion). Africanews noted the figures 'remain unverified by independent sources' |
| Trees planted | 2022 | 25,000,000,000 | yes (to date) | organization-wide | Self-reported | [source](https://sdgs.un.org/partnerships/green-legacy-initiative) UN SDG Partnerships page submitted by the Office of the Prime Minister, Ethiopia: '25 billion seedlings' planted by the fourth year (2019-2022) against a 20 billion target. Government-reported |
| Trees planted | 2026 | 47,000,000,000 | yes (to date) | organization-wide | Self-reported | [source](https://www.popsci.com/environment/fifty-billion-seedlings-can-ethiopia-replant-its-ravaged-forests/) Yale Environment 360 / Popular Science, Oct 2026, citing government figures: 'more than 47 billion seedlings' planted in seven years. Independent assessments: Tefera and Thatiparthi, Discover Environment 3:167 (2 Oct 2025), https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44274-025-00349-w, found 39.8% average seedling survival 2019-2024 in Gubalafto district (annual range 7.59% to 76.5%, from local administrative records); 'Early indications of success of rehabilitating degraded lands through Green Legacy initiative implemented in South Ethiopia', Trees, Forests and People 25:101242 (May 2026), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266671932600141X, found 35,599 of 44,501 seedlings of four exotic species alive, about 80%, at selected southern sites. No national independent audit exists |

Confidence: self-reported is the organization's own published figure; independently verified means a third party confirmed it; estimated means TreeRM derived it and the note says how.

JSON: https://treerm.org/api/v1/organizations/ethiopia-green-legacy-initiative