The Tigray Region of northern Ethiopia is perhaps best known internationally for images of famine victims which were broadcast around the world in the mid-1980s.

Now, after a 20 year intensive program of land restoration, the previously degraded and deforested landscape is being totally transformed.

An article on the website of the African Regreening Initiative (ARI) recounts - in words and pictures - a recent visit which involved the World Agroforestry Centre and ARI documenting restoration of trees on farms and in landscapes across northern Ethiopia.

Thanks to the efforts of local people, infiltration pits, terraces, bunds and other conservation works now cover around80% of all cultivated land in East and Central Tigray. Trees are returning to the hillsides and recharged groundwater in the valleys has allowed farming families to grow vegetables and fruit trees, making them more food secure than ever before.

Exclusion areas have also been created, where no cutting or grazing is allowed, allowing the natural vegetation to regenerate.

The government is now proposing to plant 100 million Faidherbia albida trees to improve soil fertility and restore a total of 15 million hectares of degraded land across Ethiopia.

Read the full story: Regreening in Tigray, Ethiopia and view a 90 second trailer of a documentary which is being produced with the assistance of the Dutch Embassy and World Bank.