Teacher:In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Teacher: Now, understand the problem? Solve this instance: RELEASE: African Countries Launch AFR100 to Restore 100 Million Hectares of Land 
  
 Commitments from 10 countries announced at the Global Landscapes Forum 
  
 Lire le communiqué de presse en français ici. 
  
 Pressemitteilung lesen Sie hier auf Deutsch. 
  
 PARIS (December 6, 2015)—African countries launched AFR100 (African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative), a pan-African, country-led effort to restore 100 million hectares (386 thousand square miles) of degraded and deforested landscapes by 2030. The AFR100 target of 100 million hectares has been endorsed by the African Union. So far 10 African countries have agreed to join AFR100 and committed at least 31.7 million hectares of land for forest landscape restoration. AFR100 partners are earmarking more than USD $1 billion in development finance and more than $540 million in private sector impact investment to support restoration activities. 
  
 The announcement was made during the Global Landscapes Forum at the Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris, where forest landscape restoration is a key ingredient of the global movement to adapt to and mitigate climate change. Commitments made through AFR100 build on significant climate pledges made by many African countries to support a binding global climate agreement. 
  
 “Restoring our landscapes brings prosperity, security and opportunity,” said Dr. Vincent Biruta, Minister of Natural Resources in Rwanda. “With forest landscape restoration we’ve seen agricultural yields rise and farmers in our rural communities diversify their livelihoods and improve their well-being. Forest landscape restoration is not just an environmental strategy, it is an economic and social development strategy as well.” 
  
 For the first time, AFR100 brings together political leadership with an ambitious package of financial and technical resources to support a large-scale forest landscape restoration effort across Africa. Nine financial partners and 10 technical assistance providers have pledged support, led by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD Agency), Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and World Resources Institute (WRI). 
  
 “The scale of these new restoration commitments is unprecedented,” said Wanjira Mathai, Chair of the Green Belt Movement and daughter of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai. “I have seen restoration in communities both large and small across Africa, but the promise of a continent-wide movement is truly inspiring. Restoring landscapes will empower and enrich rural communities while providing downstream benefits to those in cities. Everybody wins. ” 
  
 Countries that have agreed to join the AFR100 initiative include: 
  
 • Democratic Republic of Congo | 8 million hectares 
  
 • Ethiopia | 15 million hectares 
  
 • Kenya | Committed, but finalizing hectare target 
  
 • Liberia | 1 million hectares 
  
 • Madagascar | Committed, but finalizing hectare target 
  
 • Malawi | Committed, but finalizing hectare target 
  
 • Niger | 3.2 million hectares 
  
 • Rwanda | 2 million hectares 
  
 • Togo | Committed, but finalizing hectare target 
  
 • Uganda | 2.5 million hectares 
  
 AFR100 builds on the climate commitments made by African countries. So far, 13 of the INDCs (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) submitted by African countries include restoration, conservation of standing forests, or “climate-smart” agriculture. According to WRI analysis, following through on the commitments would cumulatively reduce emissions by 1.2 Gt CO2eq over the next 10 years, or 36 percent of Africa’s annual emissions and 0.25 percent of global emissions. 
  
 “Restoration is really Africa’s gift to the world,” said Dr. Andrew Steer, president and CEO, World Resources Institute. “As the world forges a climate agreement in Paris, African countries— which bear the least historic responsibility for climate change-- are showing leadership with ambitious pledges to restore land. These countries are well on their way to meet the goal of restoring 100 million hectares of land, which will help sequester carbon and bring economic benefits to low-income, rural communities. These African leaders are turning their words into action and making a real contribution to respond to the global threat of climate change.” 
  
 AFR100 recognizes the benefits that forests and trees can provide in African landscapes: improved soil fertility and food security, greater availability and quality of water resources, reduced desertification, increased biodiversity, green jobs, economic growth, and increased capacity for climate change resilience and mitigation. Forest landscape restoration has the potential to improve livelihoods, especially for women. For example, 20 years ago, women in southern Niger spent an average of 2.5 hours daily collecting firewood, which was scarce in the degraded landscape. Now they prune on-farm trees saving two hours a day, time that can be spent on other income generating activities. 
  
 Commitments announced through AFR100 also support the Bonn Challenge, a global target to bring 150 million hectares of land into restoration by 2020 adopted in Germany in 2011, the New York Declaration on Forests that extends that challenge to 350 million hectares by 2030, and the African Resilient Landscapes Initiative (ARLI), an initiative to promote integrated landscape management with the goal of adapting to and mitigating climate change. With these new partners, the Bonn Challenge process has surpassed the 86 m hectare mark, on track to meet its goal well ahead of the 2020 target date. 
  
 AFR100 builds on a strong tradition of successful forest landscape restoration in Africa. In Ethiopia’s Tigray region, local communities have already restored over 1 million hectares, making the land more drought-resistant. In Niger, farmers have increased the number of on-farm trees across 5 million hectares of agricultural landscapes, improving food security for 2.5 million people. AFR100 will provide a forum for countries and communities to share knowledge and resources to achieve restoration at a greater scale. 
  
 “We know that restoration works for Africa. We’ve seen it work in countries as diverse as Malawi, Ethiopia, and Mali,” said Dr. Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, CEO of NEPAD and former Prime Minister of Niger. “But we need to scale up restoration across the whole continent- more than 700 million hectares of land in Africa have potential for restoration. AFR100 provides a platform to work together more effectively to accelerate the achievement of restoration successes to benefit tens of millions of people who are currently searching for ways to adapt to climate change and improve their well-being.” 
  
 AFR100 will help to translate ambitious commitments into action with support from private sector investors, foundations, development banks, and bilateral and multilateral funders. AFR100 will leverage a variety of financing, including grants, equity investments, loans, risk management guarantees and funds for specific interventions. 
  
 So far, AFR100 partners have set forth over USD $1 billion of development financing: 
  
 World Bank: USD $1 billion in investment in 14 African countries by 2030, as part of the Africa Climate Business Plan to support Africa’s climate resilient and low carbon development 
  
 Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is providing support for the development of the AFR100 initiative 
  
 Impact investors have already earmarked USD $546.5 million for restoration under AFR100: 
  
 Ecoplanet Bamboo: USD $175 million by 2020 
  
 Sustainable Forest Investments – Netherlands: USD $150m by 2030 
  
 Terra Global Capital: USD $100 million by 2030 
  
 Green World Ventures: USD $65 million by 2020 
  
 Moringa Partnership: USD $56.5 million by 2030 
  
 NatureVest (impact investment arm of the Nature Conservancy) 
  
 Permian Global 
  
 Through AFR100, we expect to trigger one of the largest investments in forest landscape restoration the world has ever seen," said H.E. Dr. Gerd Müller, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany. “This investment is vital for empowering local communities to scale up the inspiring restoration successes we’ve seen in Africa over the last decade.” 
  
 In addition to new financing, a coalition of organizations will provide technical assistance on a wide range of activities, including the mapping of restoration opportunities, securing further financing, and implementing restoration efforts on the ground. Partners include World Resources Institute (WRI), Clinton Foundation, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), Kijani, New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD Agency), The Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative (LPFN), and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and The Greenbelt Movement. 
  
 For more information, including updated commitments, visit www.AFR100.org. 
  
 NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), an African Union strategic framework for pan-African socio-economic development, is both a vision and a policy framework for Africa in the twenty-first century. NEPAD is a radically new intervention, spearheaded by African leaders, to address critical challenges facing the continent: poverty, development and Africa's marginalisation internationally. NEPAD provides unique opportunities for African countries to take full control of their development agenda, to work more closely together, and to cooperate more effectively with international partners. www.nepad.org 
  
 BMZ (Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) develops the guidelines on which German development policy is based and provides the bulk of funding for German development cooperation. www.bmz.de 
  
 World Resources Institute is a global research organization that spans more than 50 countries, with offices and staff in the United States, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, and six African countries and more. Our more than 500 experts and staff work closely with leaders to turn big ideas into action to sustain our natural resources—the foundation of economic opportunity and human well-being. www.wri.org ||||| Although the feat has yet to be certified by Guinness World Records, Indian officials have reported that volunteers planted a whopping 49.3 million tree saplings on July 11, blowing past the previous record for most trees planted in a single day. 
  
 That record, a mere 847,275 trees, was set by Pakistan in 2013. 
  
 A reported 800,000 volunteers from Uttar Pradesh worked for 24 hours planting 80 different species of trees along roads, railways, and on public land. The saplings were raised on local nurseries. 
  
 The effort is part of the commitment India made at the Paris Climate Conference in December 2015. In the agreement, signed on Earth Day 2016, India agreed to spend $6 billion to reforest 12 percent of its land (bringing total forest cover to 235 million acres by 2030, or about 29 percent of the country's territory). 
  
 Trees sequester carbon dioxide from the air, thereby reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. India has experienced substantial loss of its forest cover over the past few centuries, as people cut down trees for firewood, pasture, and to make room for development. 
  
 Other countries are also replanting trees. In December, African nations pledged to reforest 100 million hectares. A wide range of stakeholders, from countries to companies, also signed on to the non-binding New York Declaration of Forests that month, with the goal of halving deforestation by 2020 and ending it by 2030. The declaration also seeks to restore at leat 350 million hectares of degraded land with healthy forests. 
  
 Still, the young trees aren’t out of the woods yet, so to speak. Saplings need water and care and are susceptible to disease. Experience shows mortality rates as high as 40 percent after such massive tree plantings. 
  
 Watch India Man Plants Forest Bigger Than Central Park to Save His Island by William Douglas McMaster in National Geographic's Short Film Showcase. The filmmakers created the content presented, and the opinions expressed are their own, not those of National Geographic Partners. 
  
 Officials say they are aware of those concerns and will be monitoring the trees with aerial photography, to see which areas may need special attention. 
  
 “The world has realized that serious efforts are needed to reduce carbon emissions to mitigate the effects of global climate change,” Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said at an event promoting the planting. 
  
 Officials also hope the trees will improve air quality in India, which suffers from some of the worst in the world. Trees can help remove some pollutants from the air. Right now, 6 of the top 10 most polluted cities in the world are in the country. 
  
 Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state in India, a nation of 1.25 billion people. Some of them may be able to breathe a little easier, and find shade under the trees. 
  
 "The biggest contribution of this tree planting project is, apart from the tokenism, that it focuses on the major issues," Anit Mukherjee, policy fellow with the Centre for Global Development told the Telegraph. "It addresses many of the big issues for India: pollution, deforestation, and land use." |||||
Student:
India's goal to increase its forest cover to 235 million acres in the next 15 years has gotten a big boost. On July 11, more than 800,000 people in Uttar Pradesh state planted nearly 50 million saplings in 24 hours in a bid to set a new Guinness world record, Popular Science reports. The figure has yet to be certified, as National Geographic notes, but if it is, it will trounce the previous record of 847,275 trees set by Pakistan in 2013. India has reserved more than $6.2 billion for tree-planting initiatives in all of its 29 states, the AP reports. The effort stems from commitments made at the 2015 climate change summit in Paris. “The world has realized that serious efforts are needed to reduce carbon emissions to mitigate the effects of global climate change,” says one official from Uttar Pradesh. India has had much deforestation in recent centuries due to demand for firewood and the creation of pastures and development space. Eighth-grader Shashwat Rai planted a fig species known locally as a peepal. "I've read in a book that this tree releases maximum oxygen," he tells the AP. "There is so much pollution in the city, we need trees that produce oxygen." A tree planted, however, is not necessarily a tree gained. According to reports, up to 40% of the saplings will die. Forestry workers will use aerial photographs to keep watch over the trees. As for young Rai, he says he'll check his tree often, adding, "I don't want this plant to die." India's not the only country getting in on the tree-planting action, per National Geographic: African nations say they will reforest nearly 250 million acres by 2030. (This is the most dangerous tree in the US.)