Mongolia Plants Over 20 Million Trees

Mongolia has planted 20.6 million trees across the country since the launch of its national tree-planting campaign "Billion Trees" in 2021, the country's Ministry of Environment and Tourism said Friday.

The survival rate of the planted trees is more than 90 percent, the ministry said in a statement.

In October 2021, Mongolia launched the nationwide tree-planting campaign as the country's President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh told the United Nations General Assembly that the campaign aims to plant at least a billion trees by 2030 to combat desertification.

By the target year, the campaign is projected to increase the country's forest coverage to at least 9 percent and reduce carbon emissions by around 600,000 tons.

Desertification related to climate change has been the main factor behind the increasing frequency of yellow dust storms in Mongolia in recent years, the ministry said.

Desertification and land degradation have already affected 77 percent of Mongolia's total territory, only 7.9 percent of which is now covered by forests, according to the ministry.