View PATSPO Phase 1

The Provision of Adequate Tree Seed Portfolios in Ethiopia (PATSPO) project has been financed by the Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) through the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Ethiopia (RNE) since it was launched in May 2017. Based on the request of major stakeholders and acceptance by NICFI, the second phase of the project, PATSPO II, was launched beginning April 2022 with the motto ‘Transforming the Tree Seed Sector in Ethiopia’ and to be implemented until December 2025. World Agroforestry (ICRAF) is responsible for the implementation of the project, in coordination with the Ethiopian Forestry Development (EFD), NICFI and the RNE.

Ethiopia has embarked on one of the globally most ambitious programmes on forest landscape restoration with a commitment to restore more than 20 million hectares of degraded forest landscapes until 2035. Even before this pledge was made, the country’s programme for afforestation and reforestation was embedded in the Climate-Resilient Green Economy Strategy.

Deforestation and land degradation in Ethiopia are limiting the capacity of forests and the land to contribute to food- and water security and to provide other benefits such as timber, fuel wood, fodder, and environmental services. Tree-based restoration requires the use of many tree species at the same time. Where restoration is based on natural regeneration, it would thus require the presence of healthy and diverse seed sources and/or soil seed banks. When planting trees is necessary, whether for replenishment or enrichment, a supply of genetically diverse, healthy and productive tree species is generally not easily available. Traditional supply programmes focus on relatively few species, most of them of unknown genetic quality, often accompanied by insufficient knowledge of adaptation to site conditions and adaptability to climate change.

PATSPO has worked to make available and ensure access to high quality seeds of the most important tree species for forest landscape restoration and tree planting activities in Ethiopia. The second phase of the project is expected to further ensure that forest-restoration and tree-planting initiatives have access to high-quality seeds of the most important tree species.

PATSPO II runs for four years (2022–2025) and is essential to lock in the gains of the first phase of the project, ensure sustainability of the project’s objectives and build on its achievements, especially through the development of more breeding seed orchards and registered seed stands, training of Regional Tree Seed Centers (RTSC), private seed dealers, and farmer groups collecting tree seed, and raising awareness of all stakeholders in the tree seed sector on the need to produce, collect and use quality seed.

The second phase is to be implemented in close collaboration and alignment with the EFD (including its research section). It is proposed that the Government of Ethiopia make specific annual allocations available to EFD to be fully involved in project operations and to ensure longer term sustainability of production and dissemination of improved diverse tree seed.