Residents in Kitui County yesterday engaged in various environmental conservation activities including clean-up of streets in major towns and tree-planting to mark this year’s Mazingira day celebrations.
National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) officials, environmental enthusiasts and Kitui county government officials led the residents in the environmental conservation exercises across the county.
Speaking at Kitui Teachers Training centre in Kitui town, the county director of NEMA Ms Catherine Adwong’a regretted that there has been massive charcoal burning activities especially in the remote parts of the county leading to massive reduction of forest cover.
She advised the county residents to engage in continuous tree-planting efforts to counter massive deforestation resulting from the uncontrolled charcoal burning activities.
The NEMA county director further called for continuous engagement of the young people in the ongoing efforts to plant 15 billion trees in 10 years across the country.
In efforts to sustain a clean and secure environment, she underscored the need for everyone including NEMA authority and like-minded institutions to adopt the recommended ways of disposal of solid waste, in order to avoid contamination of water sources.
“As everyone has a right to live in a clean and secure environment, similarly everybody has a responsibility to conserve and protect the environment,” Madam Adwong’a observed.
Scores of environmentalist speakers drawn from partners in environmental conservation working in the county who had graced the occasion, cautioned the county residents against destruction of the environment, as the act was a threat to climate change impact.
The partners emphasized that they need to improve forest cover by engaging in massive planting of trees and minimizing activities that lead to destruction of the environment.
Officer-in-charge of Kenya forest service in the county Mr Charles Kaviti, while addressing the residents noted that they targeted to plant about 45 million trees across the county by the year 2030, in efforts to replace fallen trees.
He challenged the local residents to engage in continuous tree-planting activities in order to achieve the target.
By Denson Mututo
