Makueni County intends to plant 230 million tree seedlings in the next 10 years to increase forest cover and combat climate change effects, County Ecosystem Conservator Evans Maneno has said.
The tree planting will target forests, water towers, and dry landscapes through agroforestry on farms, wetlands, and riparian land outside gazetted forests.
“We shall achieve the planting through the rehabilitation of forest areas and dry lands supporting agro-forest on farms and by establishing both public and commercial forests,” said Maneno during the National Government County Service Delivery Coordination Committee chaired by Mukaa Sub-county Deputy County Commissioner Mohamed Abass in Wote.
He added that the trees will be planted at schools, avenue tree planting, restocking of forest plantations, supporting the establishment of urban forests with the wards and sub-counties, and also growing fruits and wood load in schools and institutions in the area.
The programme will be supported by the government through the Kenya Forest Service, the private sector, farmers, schools and institutions, and the county government of Makueni.
“By the end of this year, as KFS, we intend to plant 2 million tree seedlings, and with other stakeholder groups, we are expecting to raise over 34 million tree seedlings annually,” said the County Ecosystem Conservator.
The initiative is in line with the Presidential directive to plant 15 billion trees by 2032 in an effort to restore forest cover and mitigate the effects of climate change in the country.
On the role of trees in the country, Maneno said that trees create job employment for youth and women, contribute over Sh 20 billion worth of goods to other productive sectors in the economy, and have cultural and spiritual significance.
During the meeting, the Ecosystem Conservator said that the Chyulu Hills REDD+ Carbon Project supported KFS in distributing 2,000 melia seedlings to 25 farmers for commercial tree growing in Nthongoni, Nzambani, Utithi, Maikuu, Ngumo, Kiboko, and Makindu in Kibwezi East and West sub-counties.
Also, the organisation has provided 1,000 Melia seedlings to 30 schools for commercial farming and supported 48 groups of farmers with 480 modern bee hives and five water tanks at five schools in the area.
Maneno further disclosed that the organisation has trained Forest Rangers in incident detection alert and rehabilitation of forests and has provided two groups with tree nursery tools and equipment worth Sh500,000.
Abass said that the government is committed to supporting all stakeholders in planting trees to combat the effects of climate change in the county.
By Patrick Nyakundi
