The Kenya Forest Service has announced that its plan to achieve 10 per cent forest cover by 2022 is progressing well and lauded the roles played by partners.
KFS chief conservator of Julius Kamau said in 2019, the agency identified a total of 480,000 hectares of forest landscapes that needed rehabilitation in different forests.
He said the trees had been destroyed and others cut down by illegal loggers and were not replaced.
Kamau said they came up with Adopt-A-Forest Initiative as an innovative way to fast track the restoration process.
Through the initiative, he said the service had entered into partnerships with more than 50 agencies that comprise public, private sector and individual environment champions to assist in replanting trees in different forests.
The partnership runs for three years, where partners gets a five-acre piece of land in a forest to plant and take care of those trees.
“This is a process of restoration of forests by pulling in partners to complement our work. It has gone well and we are realising good results” he said.
He spoke at KFS headquarters in Karura when he led the agency in signing a three-year framework of collaboration with Kenya Association of Manufacturers for planting trees.
The 2022- 21 framework will see the two organisations restore up to 10,000 hectares of identified degraded forests within 41 counties.
Kamau lauded KAM for continued supported since the tree growing initiative stated, saying that manufacturing sector is one of the direct beneficiaries of well-conserved forest ecosystems.
KAM chief executive Phyllis Wakiaga praised the KFS for the role it was playing of restoring public confidence that forests can be restored and environment conserved.
She committed to using the umbrella agency to mobilise manufacturers across the country to actively invest in tree growing for the next three years.
(edited by Amol Awuor)
