Thursday 8 July 2010

Reforestation of Eritrea

Centuries of deforestation had left Anatolia almost bare of trees. Since the inception of the republic in the early 20s of the XX century, Turkey started to revert this trend, and from 1960 onwards has been implementing a very strong policy of reforestation, that has seen the surface covered by forests grow from 10 to 25 million hectares nowadays (20% of which, 5 million hectares, is commercially exploited).

The additional 15 million hectares of forest created in Anatolia in the last 50 years (300 thousands hectares per year in average) would be enough to cover all the surface of Eritrea (slightly less 12 million hectares) with forests.

So reforesting Eritreans highlands or other areas is feasible, and the Turkish experience shows it could be done relatively quickly: taking in account the relative proportions, Eritrea should reforest "just" 40 thousands acre per year to reach the same rate of forest regrowth than Turkey.

[comment to a part of Solomon's Hgi Endaba: The Laws of our Ancestors ]

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