Some 10 acres of land has been set aside for tree planting at Konza Technopolis City in a bid to mitigate effects of climate change.
Ministry of Affairs senior assistant secretary Isabel Maithia said Konza Technopolis Development Authority had donated to the ministry 9.8 acres out of the 1, 600 acres for tree planting.
“It’s our performance contract chatter to plant trees. We are happy that this year we have 9.8 acres to plant trees. This has been made possible through partnership with Green Africa Foundation and Konza Technopolis Development Authority that have provided tree seedlings and land respectively,” Maithia said.
Maithia spoke during the Plant Your Age Day 2023 edition at Konza Technopolis City in Makueni county on Friday.
Some 500 trees were planted during the event.
“We hope to fill the remaining parcel with more trees with time,” Maithia said.
Konza Technopolis Development Authority in charge of Environmental Sustainability Beryl Omolo said the Authority had set aside 1,600 acres out of its total 5,000 acres for afforestation.
“We have committed 9. 8 acres to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to plant trees since environmental sustainability is key to us,” said Omolo.
Omolo said as an Authority they had launched a program to plant 1 million trees in this financial year.
“That was a presidential directive by the President and we are keen to achieve it in this financial year. It is a call for anyone who is willing to partner with Konza Technopolis Development Authority as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Green Africa Foundation. Come, we have tree planting events every Friday,” said Omolo.
The event was organized by Green Africa Foundation in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Konza Technopolis Development Authority among others. Several organizations were represented in the exercise.
The Foundation’s chair and founder Dr Kalua Green appealed to all Kenyans to take up tree growing as an opportunity for livelihoods, to create wealth, employment opportunities, rejuvenises our soil, deal with matters and effects of climate change.
“What gets counted gets done, gets done and this is what we are trying to say. With 15.7 billion trees that President William Ruto has talked about, we need to own the process,” Green said.
“It will not just happen because it has been said, there is existence of the Ministry of Environment or other ministries. It is beyond ministries. It is important for every individual, reason why this year we are calling for corporates to take it up and individuals at the same time,” Green said.
He said Plant Your Age Day is an annual event, an inspiration started in 2012 when environmentalist Prof Wangari Maathai died.
“When Wangari Maathai passed on, we called on Kenyans to plant 71 trees in her memory and the expectation was that we would have planted about 5.6 million trees in a year. But to Kenyans’ surprise, more that 15.7 million trees were planted in one year,” Green said.
“Soon after, together with former President Mwai Kibaki in 2022, we formerly started ‘Plant Your Age’ together with Green Africa villages and launched it during a national tree planting day in Kitui County.
This has since evolved to many levels where trees have been planted in different counties on every September 14,” Green said.
Green said they were glad that the initiative led President William Ruto to also plant trees equivalent to his age on December 21, 2022.
He said they had launched an APP which all Kenyans could use to monitor their trees on www.plantyourage.africa. This platform he said makes Kenyans to register their trees and monitor them wherever they are.
“We have today launched ‘Plant Your Age’ award that is going to be global starting from here at home. It is about responsibility; how can the numbers be made easy? And that is what we have done today.
Currently, the Kenyan population is 55.3 million, our mean age is 19.6. If every Kenyan planted trees equivalent to their ages on annual basis supported by the corporates so that they also participate as Corporate Social Investments, Kenyans will plant 7.5 billion trees and they are ready,” Green asserted.
Green said the youth were ready to plant and grow trees in their own homes especially when they know why they are planting them.
“They will take care of them. They will do things that are supposed to be done to ensure the trees grow since it isn’t just about planting them,” Green said.
He said about 1.08 billion trees can be planted in the country in one year.
“If a company like Safaricom for instance that has about 43 million customers support half of that number; 23 million to plant and grow trees equivalent to their ages, where a cost of seedling is between Sh10 and Sh30, then Safaricom would plant 3.74 billion trees in seven years,” Green explained.
Green said KCB that has about 28.8 million clients would help plant 2.7 million trees within seven years if it supports half of its clients plant trees.
“If Vivo Oil Company which imported about 1.3 billion of litres of oil last year alone says 2litres would plant one seedling, and a seedling costs Sh10 – 30, then Vivo would plant about 4.7 billion trees within seven years,” Green said.
World Vision would work with the 3.1 million collaborators they work with in an annual basis to grow trees equivalent to their ages at 19.6, they would plant 405 million trees within seven years,” he said.
He said if the foreigners in the country who are about 1.5 million through various Embassies plant trees equivalent to their ages at a mean of 19.6, they would plant 205 million trees in seven years.
“So, those few numbers I have talked about count out to 18.8 billion trees. It is achievable, 15 billion trees is nothing for as long as; the numbers can be counted, we can relate the tree growing to improvement of soil and therefore improvement of food, creation of job opportunities and livelihoods.