Just less than a couple of weeks ago we were blessed to witness a heroic performance of our athletes in front of the world in the Sydney Olympics. This was indeed an event that the world would never afford to forget for years to come. For Africans in general and Ethiopians in particular the very scene of the Sydney Olympics would never fade away easily from our minds until we see once again similar resounding victories that surpass what have already experienced.

Needless to say, one name and one word are dominating all the talks made and all news mirrored from Addis about our athletes' success in Sydney Olympics: Haile and Yichalal .

 Yichalal was a word , a promise, a commitment given in Addis prior to the long journey to Sydney. It was to mean "WE CAN MAKE IT ". WE CAN MAKE IT even if conditions at the ground seem to tell otherwise. WE CAN MAKE IT even if the whole world expects otherwise. And we made it. Praise to God.

 Now that we have celebrated the realisation of the very word Yichalal at the Olympics, should we leave this word simply to thin into the air? No! Its essence should show up in all other sectors as well and it should be our driving force in changing the image our country has assumed in the minds of the so called international community.

 Lets now project the implications of Yichalal in our effort of working for the betterment of the environment.

 Our environment has unquestionably been deteriorating from time to time that some of us now are far from believing that it is still possible to reverse the trend. But what has been done somewhere else during the last decades rather flags the deep meaning of Yichalal.

There have been successful movements and campaigns all over the world to tackle environmental problems. Many astonishing stories were made out of such efforts by local communities to resist deforestation on one hand and carry our afforestation on the other. Such stories include that of Amazonia, where rubber tappers have blocked deforestation to create "tree gardens"; China, whose northern people have planted a "Great Green Wall" as a windbreak against erosion; India's Chipko movement; the man who planted 30,000 trees; the "Women under the Acacia tree" of Kenya, and the million-tree reforestation of Los Angeles' basin by a small non-profit group called TreePeople, etc.

 We have read that our forest coverage has dwindled from 40% at the turn of the century to less that 2.5% now. Is it really completely impossible to see the forest regenerating once again?

No! Yichalal. The Chinese were able to show the world that afforestation is possible even under extreme conditions. Costa Rica is a model for the very lesson that even forests of our type can regenerate. The experience of developing forests while prospering side-by-side was proven in Thailand.

Given sound land use policies and political stability, converting the currently bare land into a green catchy landscape is not beyond reach- Yichalal.

But where to start?

What if we start with local to national tree planting campaigns? For those of us in the Diaspora, what about ADOPTING at least one tree back home?

Send me what you have to say.

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