Environment Cabinet Secretary Soipan Tuya has commended the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) for taking up the tree planting challenge.
The CS, who spoke during the 59th birthday of ACK's Archbishop Dr Jackson Ole Sapit that was commemorated by planting 59 trees.
Tuya applauded the church for encouraging its faithful to plant trees on special occasions including baptisms, birthdays and weddings.
"I am very happy that the Anglican Church has taken it further, not just trees for birthdays, trees for confirmation, trees for baptism, trees for weddings. I am happy," she said.
The ACK, through the Anglican Green Movement, has so far planted two million trees across the church's dioceses where it is setting up communal forests.
The church has also adopted degraded acreage in Ngong Forest that it is restoring with the support of Equity Bank.
"We talk about 15 billion trees yet 80 per cent of Kenyans still depend on biomass for domestic fuel. We will not be able to achieve the goal without working hard to turn every household in Kenya into clean cooking options," Tuya added.
The CS also persuaded Kenyans to take tree growing seriously saying ecosystem restoration as a climate mitigation effort was a matter of life and death.
"We can no longer plant trees as a pastime. It is not just a simple act of CSR. It is a life and death undertaking because of the potential of our tree growing to turn around the climate crisis we're facing," she said.
The government had called for religious institutions to actively participate in the 15 billion national tree-growing programme that's aimed at raising Kenya's tree cover to 30 per cent in 10 years.
