President Ruto gets a pat on the back for his 15bn trees by 2032 initiative

A University don has said President William Ruto’s push for the growing of 15 billion trees by 2032 was justified, as Kenya was slipping into a desert.

“Planting more and more trees is a necessary cause of action because the Kenya’s forest cover has diminished from 30 per cent and currently stands at 8.5 per cent,” Strathmore University VC Vincent Ogutu said.

Dr Ogutu said the Google greening map for Africa showed Kenya was a desert, as the green belt stretching from West Africa ends in Uganda and into Tanzania.

“If you look at Kenya it is not any different from the Sahara Desert up North. So Kenya is largely a desert. We only have 8.5 per cent forest cover which is ridiculous,” the academician said.

All must heed Ruto’s call and support him in restoring Kenya's depleted forest cover.

Ogutu was speaking in Kitui during the launch of a joint tree planting exercise between his institution and South Eastern Kenya University.

“Strathmore land is 43 acres compared to Seku’s 15,000 acres. We needed a partnership because our 43 acres could not accommodate many trees,” he said.

The ceremony was marked with the planting of about 6,000 mango seedlings at the Seku campus orchard on Friday.

Kitui Cooperative Bank branch manager Jacob Munyao, whose institution had donated 3,000 seedlings, graced the event. 

The don said every Kenyan university should endeavour to plant the 130,000 trees allocated by the government in order to help in replenishing the country’s forest cover.

Even if all the 77 universities in Kenya met the target of planting 130,000 trees, it would just be a drop in the ocean, Ogutu said, adding that it was a good starting point.

Seku VC Prof Douglas Shitanda said the university which is nestled in the largely arid Kitui county, has plans to go green and set up a solar energy plant for its power needs.

Shitanda said in line with the university’s motto - Arid to Green - the institution will harness the sunshine which is largely available. 

Meanwhile at a different event in Kitui South sub-county last Friday, youth joined the rest of the country in the national tree planting day initiative.

The youth planted close to 100 trees on two separate sites at Kyoani Recreation Centre and Mutomo sub-county administrator’s office. They were led by the County director for youth affairs, Gillian Mutanu.

Mutanu urged the youth to be at the fore-front of environment conservation and re-afforestation in the face of the adverse effects of climate change.