Efficacy of Egypt’s 100 Million Trees Initiative in Question

People are walking on the Qasr Al Nile Bridge during a sunny day in Cairo, Egypt, on May 16, 2024. (Ahmed Gamal/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

MINA NADER AND JACOB WIRTSCHAFTER
07/12/2024

After the launch of a project meant to improve quality of life and balance Egyptian carbon emissions, residents say that new construction in Cairo is leading to a loss of green spaces

[Cairo] Leading up to the UN’s 2022 Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, the Egyptian government introduced the 100 Million Trees initiative, which was meant to enhance air quality in Greater Cairo and counterbalance nationwide carbon emissions. Two years later, some residents of Egypt’s capital still say they see more trees felled than new ones being planted.

Last month, Egypt’s Local Development Ministry reported that 7.6 million trees were planted during the 2022-2023 fiscal year, with a cost of 200 million Egyptian pounds, or about $4 million. An additional 98 million Egyptian pounds (about $2 million) have been allocated to reforestation efforts to plant 3 million trees in Cairo and in 13 of the country’s 27 governorates.

Local media often feature efforts by state-approved nonprofit organizations that work with schoolchildren and corporate employees to plant trees in the capital and its surrounding communities, including Dakahlia, Kafr el-Sheikh, and Beni Suef. The youth environmental initiative Shagrha is one of the leading organizations behind the efforts.


I got the idea when I saw people eating blueberries from a tree in front of my house in Obour. I asked myself, why shouldn’t I plant other trees for people to benefit from? Three days later, I decided to start the initiative and announced it through a page on Facebook.

“I got the idea when I saw people eating blueberries from a tree in front of my house in Obour,” Shagrha’s founder Omar Eldeeb told The Media Line. “I asked myself, why shouldn’t I plant other trees for people to benefit from? Three days later, I decided to start the initiative and announced it through a page on Facebook.”

Since 2016, Shagrha has planted over 350,000 fruit trees across 17 Egyptian governorates. The initiative also transformed over 10,000 balconies and rooftops into gardens, growing vegetables, medicinal plants, and fruit trees.

Yet despite efforts like these, Egypt is facing deforestation. Data from the Alternative Policy Solutions project at the American University in Cairo show a 75% decrease in tree cover between 2010 and 2023. In 2010, Egypt’s tree cover amounted to 143,000 hectares, about 0.15% of the country’s total area. By 2023, only 35,000 hectares of Egypt were wooded.

Global Forest Watch, a US-based monitoring organization, found that Egypt experienced a small net increase in tree cover between 2000 and 2020.

“Because of the definitions we use, the area of that net tree cover gain is quite small, only about 2,000 hectares,” Mikaela Weisse, director of Global Forest Watch, told The Media Line. She noted that this number wouldn’t account for newly planted trees that are not tall enough to be visible from a satellite.


I can’t conclusively say whether these efforts are effective due to our limited ability to monitor them. However, it’s worth noting that the amount of carbon sequestration from global forest data in Egypt only represents a small portion of the carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

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“I can’t conclusively say whether these efforts are effective due to our limited ability to monitor them,” she continued. “However, it’s worth noting that the amount of carbon sequestration from global forest data in Egypt only represents a small portion of the carbon emissions from fossil fuels.”

Egypt produces 259 million tons of carbon emissions from fossil fuels each year, and the country’s current level of tree cover can capture only about 0.1% of those emissions, Weisse said.

Local activists and environmentalists note that thousands of trees have been removed from parks, streets, and Nile-side areas in Cairo’s upscale Heliopolis and working-class Shubra districts. They describe the tree removal as threatening their neighborhoods and their health.

Last year, a 1.5-acre portion of the historic Merryland Park in Heliopolis was cleared to make room for a monument dedicated to the Army Construction Corps, whose projects are transforming Cairo.

Between August and January 2022, a street expansion project in Cairo resulted in the clearing of 100 acres of green space, Choucri Asmar, chair of the Heliopolis Heritage Foundation board, told The Media Line.


We used to keep track of certain figures, but we had to halt due to a lack of cooperation, which is frustrating. It seems that all the planning revolves around constructing highways to the New Administrative Capital, including building about a dozen new bridges in Heliopolis.

“We used to keep track of certain figures, but we had to halt due to a lack of cooperation, which is frustrating,” Asmar said. “It seems that all the planning revolves around constructing highways to the New Administrative Capital, including building about a dozen new bridges in Heliopolis.”

The construction of one highway resulted in the felling of 546 trees, even though the foundation had originally been told no trees would be affected, Asmar said. He also criticized the highway for being dangerous, noting that 29 people died on the highway in the first month of its opening.

According to a report submitted to Parliament by the opposition Social Democratic Party, Cairo’s paltry green space shrunk from 4.8 square miles in 2017 to 4.3 square miles in 2020. On average, Egyptians enjoy just 6.7 square inches of green space per capita.

In response to the deforestation, Cairo environmental lawyer Ahmed Elseidi drafted a petition asking the state to stop illegal tree removal.