Kenya: The Kenya Ministry of Education has entered into a collaboration with the leadership of the Kenya Forest Service to support the government’s tree planting initiative. The Ministry, through CS Ezekiel Machogu has pledged to plant 30 Million Trees every year to support the initiative.
The ten year goal for the organization totals up to 300 Million Trees. The Ministry of Education team is serious about supporting the administration’s goal of planting 15 billion trees by 2032.
Accordingly, Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu has urged State Departments under his ministry to support the initiative. He asked all the departments to increase their support for the target in any manner possible.
He made the appeal while speaking during a strategizing meeting at the Nairobi Arboretum. The officials have shared that they are taking several steps to realize this mandate.
The Cabinet Secretary has announced that all educational institutions will observe one tree-planting day for every term in a year. This initiative will enable the Ministry of Education to easily achieve its annual targets.
The ministry also wants all universities to establish nurseries with at least 100,000 seedlings each. TVETs will also participate, with plans to establish “greening champions” and “TVET Eco warriors.”
The Cabinet Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Soipan Tuya, noted that the initiative is very important. The Cabinet Secretary said, “Tree planting is not a pastime; it is a life-and-death issue”.
The urgency of the situation is appreciated by several other government organs, who have also extended their support for the initiative at different times during the previous months.
The Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, and Forestry has taken several steps in this direction. It developed a national strategy to restore 10.6 million hectares of degraded forest areas by 2032.
To realise this mandate, they collaborate with all ministries, departments, state agencies and the private sector. All the stakeholders of the tree planting initiative have been given annual and ten years that they are collectively working towards.
The Chief Conservator of Forests, Alex Lemarkoko has promised that the Kenya forest service will offer their unparalleled support. The KFS has 197 forest Stations across the country and they can easily offer technical support for nursery management, tree growing and site matching.
Academic institutions and corporations can participate in realizing the annual targets through the Adopt-a-forest initiative.