Kenya racing against time to hit 10% forest cover

Kenya is targetting to plant at least two billion trees by end of this year in a bid to increase the country’s forest cover from the current seven percent to 10 per cent.

The tree-planting campaign will be done in two main seasons including March during the long rains and October during the short rains.

To support this initiative, the Kenya Trade Network Agency (KenTrade) has committed to planting at least 2,000 trees this year

This, as reports, indicates that the country has the least trees in Africa.

Speaking during a tree planting exercise at the Nairobi Primary School, KenTrade chief executive officer Amos Wangora explained that the initiative highlights the agency's commitment to sustainability.

“At seven per cent tree cover, Kenya is one of the least forested countries in Africa, equating to 67 trees per person, compared to a global average that’s around 420 trees for each person in a country,'' Wangora said.

In 2020, KenTrade planted a total of 2,500 mangrove trees at the Port Reitz mangrove site in Mombasa. It has been planting 1400 trees every year since 2015.

“As part of its commitment to increase its investment in enriching the forest cover, the corporation has opted to expand its footprint to other locations like Namanga, Ngong, and even schools like Nairobi Primary,” Wangora said.

According to The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Kenya faces high rates of deforestation which endanger both its fauna and flora.

When Kenya gained independence in 1963, 10 per cent of the country was covered in forest.

By 2009, this number had dropped to six per cent as a result of charcoal and timber production, agriculture expansion, unregulated logging and urbanisation.

“Not only has this increased the country’s contribution to climate change, but it has also had a number of other devastating impacts, including soil erosion, increased flooding and dramatically reduced availability of fresh water during drought,’’ a report reads in part.

The United Nations Environment Programme estimated that between 2000 and 2010 more than 28,000 hectares of forest were lost from these water towers, leading to reduce water availability of approximately 62 million cubic metres per year.

The resulting costs to our economy far exceeded the financial gains from forestry and logging during that same period by a ratio of four to one.

Nearly a decade ago, the government made a constitutional commitment to replenish the country’s forests back to 10 per cent of surface area by 2030, which is equivalent to more than 1.6 million hectares of reforestation.

There are new government-led initiatives. For example, the government has moved forward its deadline for the 10 per cent target to 2022 and has created an enabling and legal framework to achieve it.

In general, the world has a total forest area of 4.06 billion hectares (ha), which is 31 per cent of the total land area. This area is equivalent to 0.52 ha per person. It has lost 178 million hectares since 1990.

The rate of net forest loss decreased substantially over the period 1990–2020 due to a reduction in deforestation in some countries, plus increases in forest area in others through afforestation and the natural expansion of forests.

According to FAO, it declined from 7.8 million ha per year in the decade 1990–2000 to 5.2 million ha per year in 2000–2010 and 4.7 million ha per year in 2010–2020.

The rate of decline of net forest loss slowed in the most recent decade due to a reduction in the rate of forest expansion.

Africa had the largest annual rate of net forest loss in 2010–2020, at 3.9 million hactares, followed by South America, at 2.6 million hectares. This has been in each of the three decades since 1990.

About 98 million hactares of forest were affected by fire in 2015; this was mainly in the tropical domain, where the fire burned about four per cent of the total forest area in that year. More than two-thirds of the total forest area affected was in Africa and South America.

The world’s total growing stock of trees decreased slightly, from 560 billion m3 in 1990 to 557 billion m3 in 2020.

Africa’s forests cover approximately 624 million hectares, about one-fifth of the continent’s total land area.

However, around 30 per cent of the continent’s total area falls within the Saharan Desert, the world’s largest hot desert.

This desert covers most of North Africa, limiting forest growth in the region.

Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Algeria, Niger, Chad, and Tunisia are located within the 9.2 million square kilometers hot desert, with these countries having a tree cover of five per cent or less.

Rainfall is virtually non-existent in most of these countries, while temperatures are very high, making it nearly impossible for trees to thrive.