Addis Ababa: Ethiopia has launched today implementing the commitment it made at the International Refugees Conference to plant 100 million seedlings. Deputy Prime Minister Temesgen Tiruneh along with other senior government officials launched the program to plant 100 million seedlings that would be carried out by the Refugees and Returnees Service in collaboration with its partners at the Gulele Herbal Center today. Ethiopia currently hosts over 1.1 million refugees of 26 countries in several parts of the country. The tree seedlings will be planted in various places where refugees are located in Ethiopia. Speaking at the occasion, Deputy Prime Minister Temesgen revealed that over 5.5 billion seedlings have already been planted during the current rainy season as part of the Green Legacy Initiative. Temesgen said that the relentless efforts of citizens along with determination of the leadership of the country is crucial to determine the fate of future Ethiopia.The country is striving to restore its degraded forest coverage to mitigate challenges of climate change, the deputy pm said; in this regard, he added that the green legacy initiative has brought greater results. Besides the green legacy initiative, Ethiopia has made a commitment at the international refugee conference held in Geneva in December, 2023 to plant 100 million seedlings in four years. Hence, today's tree planting launching program at Gulele Herbal Center in Addis Ababa is a historic event, the deputy prime minister underscored. Noting that this tree planting project is a big task that will be carried out wherever refugees are sheltered, the deputy prime minister underscoring the need to achieve the commitment ahead of the targeted year. According to the Director General of Refugees and Returnees Services, Teyiba Hassen, Ethiopia currently hosts over 1.1 million refugees of 26 countries.She noted that though hosting refugees is internationally good deed, this huge number of refugees will inevitably put pressure on natural resources of the co untry. Some 2,000 indigenous tree seedlings were planted today and it is planned to plant 5 million seedlings before the end of 2016 Ethiopian fiscal year, the director-general stated. Source : Ethiopian News Agency