President Uhuru Kenyatta on June 5 last year while commemorating World Environment Day, directed the Environment Ministry and the Nairobi Metropolitan Services and KFS to reclaim and conserve the public land
The rehabilitation of green spaces within Nairobi has gained momentum with City Park being the latest to get a facelift.
This follows Michuki Memorial Park's refurbishing.
At City Park, there has been a lot of clean up activities.
"We have done clean up by partnering with the community," Kenya Forest Service chairman Peter Kinyua told the Star.
Located off Limuru road between Parklands and Muthaiga and 10 minutes from Nairobi CBD, the park has a rich history.
Among those buried in the park include freedom fighter Pio Gama Pinto and the second vice president Joseph Murumbi.
The park, which is the oldest having been established in the 1930s, consists of a mixture of native forest trees, cultivated gardens and open spaces for recreation.
Kinyua said Kazi Kwa Vijana helped in cleaning up the mess in the park.
"Greening our spaces is about Kenyans doing the work and not relying on the government," Kinyua said.
The KFS Chair said rehabilitation has been done free of charge.
President Uhuru Kenyatta on June 5 last year while commemorating World Environment Day, directed the Environment Ministry, the Nairobi Metropolitan Services and KFS to reclaim and conserve the public land.
The President urged the KFS to fast-track the forest management plan with community associations for the area to be fenced.
The chairperson said the place is historical and as such, it should be given a facelift. He added that sections that have been encroached will be repossessed.
KFS has also partnered with the Rehabilitation Association of Kenya in giving the park facelift.
The association's chairperson Boniface Ndirangu said the place had been neglected despite being a historical site.
"People have been struggling to know the graves," he said, adding that the association mobilised 20 people to help with the clean up.
The clean up involved the clearing of the bushes and the collection of garbage.
Ndirangu said the graveyard area is important for the country's history. "The place is of significance to out history especially to the young generation as they can learn values through the stories of the people who passed on a long time ago. A lot of visitors will be coming here and that is why it needs to be tidy," he said.
He lauded KFS for ensuring the place is safer by deploying security even as he called for more support in the clean up exercise through the provision of machines.
The National Museums of Kenya will be responsible for the protection of the national heritage and historical sites in the park.
Friends of City Park will be providing a central role of management and conservation at the park.
Last September, an inventory and assessment of green spaces within Nairobi showed that public spaces in the city are not only few but substandard.
The inventory and assessment by the United Nations Habitat said some of the public places have been turned into garbage dumping sites.
“Experiences from across the world shows that public spaces with uncollected garbage are generally perceived to be dangerous places and crime hot spots. As such, the public tends to avoid such places,” part of the 98-page report says.
The inventory, which is aimed at reclaiming the once Green City in the Sun, emphasises the importance of trees as contributors of comfort and safety in public spaces and the city at large.
Further, trees enhance the landscape, ameliorate the city image, and abate noise through natural mechanisms like transferring sound to other objects and altering the direction of the sound.
-Edited by SKanyara