Cabinet Secretary (CS) for Labour and Social Protection, Florence Bore, has commended Nyamira County residents for surpassing 12 per cent of the national tree cover percentage.
She gave her commendation while leading residents and government officers in a monthly tree planting exercise at Ibucha Primary School in Nyamira South Sub County, as directed by President William Ruto, to all his Cabinet and Principal Secretaries.
She commended residents for their tireless efforts in planting trees in their already constrained land sizes and supporting the government to plant trees in their homes and on government-owned land to ensure an initiative which has helped the county achieve 35 per cent tree cover.
“Our country must adapt to the effects of climate change, which are already directly affecting us. Our human actions of deforestation and those of other countries which emit poisonous gases from various manufacturing factories have depleted the ozone layer and made weather patterns erratic.” CS bore advised.
She recalled last month and early this month, when the country’s emergency and disaster management response team struggled to mitigate huge losses and destruction caused by heavy rains in our country.
She added that our people were adversely affected; areas were left landless and homeless, and some have lost hope of finding the bodies of their loved ones who drowned in floods.
“I encourage our residents to plant indigenous trees and fruit trees because they have several advantages compared to exotic trees, which have an economic advantage but slowly deplete soil fertility.
“I have a target of planting two million trees in two counties, one million in Bomet and another one in Nyamira. And I have planned to plant a minimum of 100,000 trees each month of my visit to ensure I attain my target.
Ensure that the trees we plant today and in subsequent months are well nurtured so that we can get value for our grand investment in restoring and conserving our environment to cushion against the effects of climate change.” Bore appealed.
President William Ruto launched a tree-growing and restoration campaign targeting to plant at least 15 billion trees by 2032, and His Cabinet Secretaries (CSs) and Permanent Secretaries (PSs) are spearheading the initiative in various counties to ensure its implementation.
By Deborah Bochere
