State pilots model villages to plant 15bn trees by 203

Enviroment CS Deborah Barasa plants a tree at the Kenya Forest Service headquarters in Karura /HANDOUT

The government has now turned to a pilot programme on model villages to fast track the dream of planting 15 billion trees by 2032.

The Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry on Friday launched the programme in Meru, saying it is the surest way of achieving the forest cover target.

Cabinet Secretary Deborah Barasa said the move is the way to go in achieving and exceeding the 15 billion mark as well as the 30 per cent tree cover.

“The 15 billion Tree Growing Programme launched as a Presidential Flagship Project, is now being translated into tangible action here in Meru county, with Kiamweri model village leading the way,” CS Barasa said in her speech.

The speech was read on her behalf by the director of economic planning in the Forestry department Lawrence Muthamia during the launch of Kiamweri model village in Meru county. The launch was held at Mukaragatine Primary School.

“I wish to commend the leadership and the people of Kiamweri for taking ownership of this national agenda,” Barasa said.

She said 30 schools have been selected in Meru county as sites for agroforestry-based tree planting, and that the pilot will be replicated in four other counties including Turkana, Kitui, Marsabit, and Kakamega before national scaling.

“This represents the Whole-of-Government and Whole-of-Society approach that is central to the success of the 15 billion tree campaign,” said Barasa.

She underscored the importance of tree growing terming it as multipliers of value including their contributions to improved education, Nutrition and food security, Income generation, Carbon credit markets, Cultural and religious enrichment, Ecosystem services as well as Tourism and green heritage.

“In planting trees, we invest in the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA), we support Vision 2030’s Fourth Medium-Term Plan (MTP IV), and we also uphold our regional and international commitments including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the AFR100, and the Bonn Challenge,” said Dr Barasa.

She added: “To our schools, teachers, and students, you are the heart of this movement. Let each learner grow with the tree they plant today; nurturing it as they grow in wisdom, knowledge, and service to the country.”

In his remarks, Muthamia noted that the 2032 target could not be realised without a well-defined strategy and this was the reason for coming up with the model villages concept which will involve people on the ground.

“We have analysed and concluded that the best teams to involve are the schools, communities, and people living along forested areas as they form the buffer zones of protecting our already existing forests,” said Muthamia.

He said after the piloting, they will have a national wide coverage so that by the end of the day, they be at a position to assess the challenges, gaps, and lessons learnt from the implementations before scaling it to the entire country.

 “We want to partner with school children as they are the centre of the families and they go down to the community, and when they grow knowing the importance of trees, it gets very well into the community and this is our target,” said Muthamia.

He also noted that they will be establishing woodlots in targeted schools where they will be engaging with teachers, County Government Departments as well as schools’ management boards.

Meru county chief forest conservator Wellington Ndaka said the programme is vital in contributing to achievement of their target which they are very keen on.

So far, he added, Meru has achieved a 12.9 percent forest cover against the target of 30 percent, and 29.6 percent of trees grown outside the gazetted forest.

“We have also managed to plant 34, 844,117 million trees against a target of 37 million meaning that we are only off by 3,000,000 trees which we will soon manage since we have similar events taking place in other parts of the county,” said Ndaka.

He said as a county they are heeding to President Ruto’s directive and will hit and exceed the target before the given time.

He also said that planting trees in the county is currently a routine exercise and 30 percent of planted trees including in their nurseries are fruit trees as they are important in terms of climate mitigation and resilience as well as their interventions in issues of nutrition and generation of income.

“We are also doing landscape and agro-forest restoration as well as dry-land forestry considering that 60 percent of Meru is dry,” said Ndaka.