Embu to plant five million trees to fight climate change

Embu county government has vowed to plant five million to trees in the next five years.

While speaking during an event of scout investiture at the county scouts headquarters, Governor Cecily Mbarire said the county is committed to dealing with climate change.

The tree planting is in line with the newly set target of tree cover of 30 per cent by 2050 as was pronounced by former president Uhuru Kenyatta in 2022.

Kenyatta also launched Kenya National Tree Growing Fund to enable Kenya to achieve her forestry climate action commitments.

Mbarire said the drought came due to a lack of proper tree cover.

"Our county has faced a severe drought the past few seasons and as a result we have decided to venture into tree planting in order to evade such a vice in future," she said.

Mbarire said she'll ensure her government allocates funds to cater for the tree planting exercise that will see one million trees planted each year.

"We want to ensure in the President's plan to plant five billion trees in the next five years we take part and plant five million of them. Our target is one million trees each year and we'll include this in our county budget," said Mbarire.

She said the plan will incorporate the special groups in the society through purchasing the trees they cultivate in their tree nurseries.

The county boss said the drive will kick off in June after setting enough funds aside to cater for the exercise.

"Our first exercise will start in June after setting aside some funds to buy trees from our youths and women groups for planting," she added.

On his side, deputy governor Justus Kinyua lauded the scouts movement for assuming the responsibility of inducing positive personal values.

"Our scouts are doing a recommendable work in tree planting and we shall be involving them to ensure we support the movement," he said.

Elinda Muthoni, the scouts commissioner Embu County, said the movement has vowed to continue with tree planting to improve the tree cover to keep the county away from drought.

She said the county boasts of up to 30,000 scouts who will ensure the one million tree target each year is achieved.

"Our law states that environmental conservation is our mandate. We shall embrace tree planting and this will earn every scout a badge namely the conservation badge," she said.