Trees best weapon in climate change fight - CS Tuya

Environment, Climate Change and Forestry Cabinet Secretary Soipan Tuya has said tree planting is an effective antidote to the worsening climate crisis.

Tuya termed the issue of climate change as the greatest existential threat currently facing humanity.

"Trees are our greatest allies in the fight against the climate crisis which is the greatest existential threat of our time," the CS said.

Tuya was speaking on Wednesday at Embakasi Garrison in Nairobi.

She was joined by her Defence counterpart Aden Duale and other high-ranking officials from the Kenya Defence Forces led by Deputy Army Commander  Mohamed Hassan.

Tuya said Kenya's security apparatus including the military and the police had acknowledged climate change as an escalator of insecurity especially among communities occupying vulnerable ecosystems and degraded landscapes.

"As you have seen with our Interior colleague CS Kithure Kindiki, climate change is topping insecurity problems in our country. So, it is an existential problem which commands us to have and to strengthen the whole-of-Government approach," she said.

With an annual target of propagating 80 million seedlings and planting 50 million trees, CS Tuya said the military was her ministry's greatest ally in the climate action.

The Kenya Kwanza administration's flagship climate action programme seeks to raise Kenya's tree cover to 30 per cent in 10 years by growing 15 billion trees.

CS Tuya explained that the new approach where each Cabinet Secretary has been assigned specific degraded ecosystems for full restoration was meant to shift the country from the traditional tree planting to nurturing trees to maturity.

"We have targets for each and every ministry, department and agency of government. We have shifted from simply planting trees to growing them to maturity," she said.

"That's why, as a cabinet directive, we have a cabinet secretary, with all their departments and agencies, out there in the field making sure that we're keeping up with our targets," Tuya added.

On his part, Duale acknowledged that climate change was an insecurity multiplier.

He assured that his ministry was determined to achieve its seedling propagation and tree planting targets ahead of schedule.

He said KDF had established a dedicated ecosystem restoration unit charged with driving forward the tree planting initiative that had, among other achievements, overseen the planting of 12 million since the launch of the initiative in December 2022.

Kutto assured that his soldiers were determined to overshoot set seedling propagation and tree planting targets.