Siaya County may not achieve its annual target of planting 14 million trees for the next one decade unless area residents embrace the exercise, area County Commissioner, Norbert Komora has said.
Speaking during a tree planting exercise at his office compound to mark this year’s Mazingira Day celebrations, Mr Komora lamented that the county was yet to achieve even one per cent of the target since the President made tree planting a priority of his government.
Mr Komora now wants the area residents to take seriously matters of environment by playing their part so that the county can achieve its target.
“With a population of approximately 1.2 million people, each Siaya resident needs to plant just 10 trees annually to help us achieve our target,” he said.
Komora at the same time announced that each of the chiefs in the county has been directed to plant 250 seedlings each week as part of the efforts to increase the forest cover.
Siaya Deputy County Commissioner, Robert Ng’etich, who also spoke during the occasion called on the residents to ensure that they record their tree planting activities on the government’s “Jaza Miti” platform.
“We are doing a lot but not recording to enable the government know how far we have gone with tree planting,” said Ng’etich.
The area sub county administration police commander, Superintendent Roseline Onyonyi called on Siaya residents to look at tree planting as a source of livelihood that must be embraced.
“Let us look at tree planting as a way of getting food, water, fresh air and even medicine,” she said.
National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) county director, Mr Rop Kipkoech said the use of banned polythene bags was slowly creeping back and warned those behind it that they will be arrested.
He said that NEMA was on the lookout for those distributing or using the banned products.
The occasion was also addressed by the Kenya Forest Service Ecosystem Conservator, William Ojijo who called on the government to hasten the gazettment of local community hills to enable his organisation plant trees on them
By Philip Onyango
