Buee (Ethiopia) (AFP)

Braving a torrential rain, hundreds of farmers had in July 2019 spent a whole day planting 20,000 acacia shoots on an arid hillside near the city of Buee, in the south of Ethiopia.

They were responding to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's call to plant 200 million trees in one day - a record reported by newspapers around the world.

A year later, and while the world celebrates Environment Day on Friday, the results are not up to the ardor of the peasants, admits Ewnatu Kornen, a local official. More than a third of the shoots have been swept away by the rains and the survivors are struggling to thrive in this not very fertile ground.

Some 353 million young trees - 153 million more than the original target - were planted across the country that day, according to official figures. They more widely estimate that 4 billion trees were planted during the rainy season - between June and September in Ethiopia.

The Prime Minister has set a new target of five billion trees for the 2020 rainy season, but the reforestation program has been criticized.

Abroad, doubts have been expressed as to the credibility of the impressive figures of the past year. And on the spot, certain experts contest the organization and the follow-up of this campaign.

- "Highly exaggerated" -

Negash Teklu claims to support the Prime Minister's reforestation policy. But he suspects that the survival rate of the trees announced by Abiy Ahmed in May - 84% of the 4 billion planted - is "highly exaggerated". No independent study has been conducted.

The activist also highlights the lack of education among citizens.

Thus in Addis Ababa, some goodwill planted large trees in the middle of busy streets where they had no chance of surviving, while others planted ornamental trees in wild forests on the outskirts of the capital. .

"It should not be a one-day campaign, once a year. But an approach that involves every citizen, wherever he is," all year round, he adds.

Belaynesh Zewdie, forest expert from the United Nations Development Program, based in Buee, was at the forefront of observing how such projects can go wrong without community support.

At the end of the 1980s, under the Communist regime of Derg, she participated in the planting of a million acacia trees in the Amhara region, in the north of the country. When the Derg fell in 1991, angry residents uprooted the trees from this centrally imposed project to cultivate the land, she recalls.

- Unite the people -

Result: hectares and hectares of flourishing trees. "In a short time, you can change a lot," says Belaynesh Zewdie. "I’m impressed myself every time I come here. It’s amazing."

Although he imposed a state of emergency in April due to the coronavirus epidemic, Abiy Ahmed remains determined to reach the goal of planting 5 billion trees this year.

"Last year, we all answered the national call and achieved our goal," he said on Twitter on Wednesday, urging Ethiopians to repeat the feat "while respecting social distancing measures."

In view of the upcoming general elections - the date of which is not yet fixed - the authorities hope that the initiative will help to overcome political and ethnic divisions and "unite our people", underlines Sileshi Degefa, director of the Gullele botanical garden in Addis Ababa.

For him, lessons have also been learned from the past year. "So I hope we will plant the right species in the right places," he said, adding, however, "that with such big programs, you can't expect perfection."

© 2020 AFP