Not the worst way to teach kids a bit about how to nurture their environment. The absolute worst case here is a bunch of kids learning stuff and applying it later in their life. The best case is that and some meaningful percentage of these trees actually survives and helps restore a bit of land. Sounds like an interesting example to follow elsewhere. There's no shortage of recently arified land across the world.

I think there are a lot of countries finding out that they are not passive participants in the curve balls nature is throwing them and that they can influence what happens with simple, low tech solutions like planting trees and taking care of them and maybe a few simple changes in behavior like keeping sheep and cattle away from volatile areas.