Can Egypt’s 100 mn trees planting initiative keep up with the felling?

🌳 Egypt has spent the last four years trying to reverse decades of shrinking green spaces across its governorates, one sapling at a time… even as it continued to cut them down. That contradiction has sparked endless debate that has dominated social media in the past few months (and years). “Why are we taking down mature trees, only to plant smaller, younger trees that take years to grow?” is the question on every Egyptian’s mind.

The factors behind the felling: Urban development, specifically road and highway expansion, is the single biggest driver. About 2.5k trees were cut in Heliopolis between 2019 and 2020 for road widening, and 10k sqm of the district’s Merryland Park was bulldozed for a monument. Routine municipal maintenance has also turned into wholesale removal; this summer’s cutting of trees on Gameat Al Dewal Al Arabeya street in Mohandesin was justified as traffic rerouting, with replacement promised once the works finish.

Rural Egypt has its own version of the story. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) documented thousands of trees uprooted along canal banks during a national lining project, without a published environmental impact study, and the felled timber was then resold at real value. One Qalyubiya trader even stated that mature trees fetch EGP 3-6k per ton.

It’s not just road-widening efforts or the wood trade that can be blamed: Some of what’s being removed was allegedly planted wrong to begin with, according to Omar El Deeb (LinkedIn), founder of tree-planting social enterprise Shagrha. “The standard policy for public landscaping in Egypt was planting non-fruit-bearing decorative trees, like Ficus, which consume vast amounts of water, offer minimal ecological value, and whose invasive root systems destroy underground infrastructure, sidewalks, and piping,” he tells EnterpriseAM.

That combination, he argues, gives municipalities justification for removing mature trees once their roots start causing damage.

Not everyone is buying it. Al Azhar’s Global Center for Electronic Fatwa weighed in, calling tree-felling “an act of aggression against creation” and noting that Prophet Muhammad forbade cutting trees even during wartime. MP Maha Abdel Nasser has also separately pressed both Local Development and Environment Minister Manal Awad and the prime minister with formal questions on the broader pattern of loss. She requested the exact number of trees cut down nationwide and demanded details on how urban planning and redevelopment projects are affecting the country’s green spaces. She also questioned how continued tree removal aligns with the government’s 100 mn trees initiative.

100 mn trees initiative and progress

Meanwhile, the country is pressing ahead with the 100 mn trees initiative. Earlier this year, the government marked the completion of its most recent phase of the initiative, putting the cumulative count at just under 8 mn planted trees.

REFRESHER- President Abdel Fattah El Sisi launched the initiative in November 2022, timed to coincide with Egypt hosting COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh. The plan for the initiative is to plant 100 mn trees across 9.9k sites covering 6.6 acres nationwide over seven years, from FY 2022/23 through FY 2028/29, funded by an EGP 3 bn cabinet allocation — EGP 30 per tree, a rather thin budget.

The Local Development Ministry carries the biggest share, 80 mn trees, with the Environment Ministry responsible for 13 mn and the New Urban Communities Authority for 7 mn. The goals include doubling Egypt’s per capita green space, cutting emissions, and generating income from fruit and timber species like olive, mahogany, and jatropha planted alongside ornamentals.

So far, progress has been steady. Egypt’s Local Development and Environment Minister Manal Awad confirmed Phase 4 completion in May 2026, with over 200k trees supplied and planted, including 75.7k across seven priority governorates and extensive plantings along Greater Cairo’s Ring Road, putting the total at almost 8 mn trees through Phase 4; 5 mn trees were planted in Phase 1, 2 mn in Phase 2, and 452k in Phase 3.

Government response

Then, this September, coinciding with rising national outcries, Housing Minister Randa El Menshawy ordered authorities to halt tree cutting entirely and protect existing trees, parks, and green spaces in Egypt’s new urban communities. The directive also called for more tree planting, expanded green spaces, and regular maintenance of landscaping and irrigation networks. This was then followed by the Public Prosecution ordering investigations into felling nationwide and directing judicial action against violators, while Awad instructed district heads to report any tree damage as a violation of Penal Code Article 162. Days later, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly ordered that no tree could be felled without approval from his ministers of local development and environment, following unsanctioned felling campaigns in Kafr El Sheikh, Gharbiya, and Luxor.

What do the numbers say?

Egypt’s Vision 2030 agenda is targeting 3 sqm of urban green space per person by 2030, while the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends nine. Cairo’s actual figure was 0.74 sqm per person in 2020, down from 0.87 sqm in 2017 and roughly 3 sqm in 2012, according to a 2022 study in the Journal of Engineering and Applied Science. EIPR puts the national average even lower, at 17 sq cm — yes, centimeters — per person, in its 2022 paper, “Lest the Green Disappear.” The same paper found that Cairo lost 910.9k sqm of green space between 2017 and 2020 alone, with Heliopolis alone losing over 272k sqm and Nasr City another 311k sqm.

What we lose when we lose our trees

Cairo is measurably hotter where its tree cover has thinned. British engineering firm Arup found that Boulaq El Dakrour, a dense, unvegetated district, ran 5°C hotter than its surroundings at the peak of a June 2022 heatwave, against a 6°C swing to the relatively green Qorsaya Island. Losing shade also changes how streets function day to day; sidewalk quality and pedestrian safety around Heliopolis both declined as tree cover fell, alongside a documented rise in local traffic accidents, per the same 2022 study on Cairo’s green-space losses. This means less shade, driving more air-conditioning demand, which in Egypt’s grid means more emissions from the same buildings the trees were meant to help cool.

International research also puts a number on that kind of loss. A US Geological Survey study that measured a residential catchment before and after removing 31 street trees found stormwater runoff rose by 198 cbm, with each tree responsible for roughly 6.4k liters a year in runoff that would otherwise have been absorbed by its canopy and roots. On the carbon side, a nationwide USDA Forest Service study found that urban trees store an average of 7.69 kg of carbon per square meter of canopy and sequester another 0.28 kg per square meter every year, meaning a mature street tree takes both a cooling function and a working carbon sink with it when it comes down.

The people planting back

Omar El Deeb founded Shagrha in 2016 after watching neighbors eat fruit from a mulberry tree on his street in Obour. “I asked myself, why don’t we plant fruit-bearing trees everywhere in public spaces so anyone can eat from them,” he said. His neighborhood authorities rejected his first request to plant on school grounds, telling him fruit trees would spark disputes over ownership, turn schools into commercial operations, maybe even cause injury or property damage when hit by stones for the fruit, and that dropped fruit would draw pests and mess. El Deeb kept going anyway. “I felt a deep spiritual and civic responsibility,” he said. “I knew this initiative had the power to create lasting, positive change for Egyptian society.”

El Deeb’s goal from the start was to plant fruit-bearing trees on public land to fight hunger and poverty through urban agriculture rather than simply add shade. The company started as a volunteer, nonprofit operation that El Deeb funded out of his own pocket, buying and transporting saplings himself in the early days. It now has active coordinators in 22 of Egypt’s 27 governorates and has planted hundreds of thousands of fruit-bearing and timber trees on streets, in schoolyards, university campuses, medical centers, orphanages, and rural villages since 2016.

The turning point for Shagrha, however, came in 2020, when the Environment Ministry invited Shagrha to a roundtable ahead of the 100 mn trees initiative launch. El Deeb argued against planting water-intensive ornamentals like Ficus in favor of fruit and timber species, advice the ministry later adopted into the national plan. In April 2024, El Obour City Authority hosted Shagrha’s anniversary event in its main hall, eight years after rejecting his idea.