Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu and his Environment and Climate Change counterpart Soipan Tuya have placed a lot of faith in students' and teachers' contribution to planting 15 billion trees by 2032.
The two CSs on Tuesday co-chaired an inter-ministerial meeting on the collaboration towards achieving the 15 billion National Tree Growing Programme.
In a joint statement, Machogu and Tuya estimated that there are 17 million learners and 600,000 educators in learning institutions spread across the country.
"With a target of growing 35 million trees and producing 300 million seedlings annually, the Ministry of Education is one of the key drivers of the 15 billion National Tree Growing Programme," the CSs said.
The 15 billion National Tree Growing Programme, is a flagship government climate action initiative anchored by the 10-year National Landscape and Ecosystem Restoration Strategy that seeks to raise Kenya’s tree cover by 17.8 per cent from the current 12.2 per cent to 30 per cent by 2032.
The CSs said in total, the government seeks to restore 10.6 million hectares of degraded ecosystems and landscapes across 11 intervention areas.
The CSs said since the launch of the 15 billion National Tree Growing Programme slightly over a year ago, the Ministry of Environment has made tremendous progress.
This includes developing the National Landscape and Ecosystem Restoration Strategy 2023-2032 as well as constructing 11 new seed centres to increase access to high-quality tree seeds.
"We have also distributed 100 metric tons of seeds estimated to produce 2 billion seedlings and oversaw the growing of 300 million seedlings across the Country as recorded on the Jaza Miti Application," they said.
The climax of the program last year, the CSs said, was the National Tree Growing Day, Kenya’s first Green Holiday on November 13, 2023, during which over a record 150 million trees were grown on one day across the country.
Following the inter-ministerial meeting, the two CSs agreed to enhance collaboration in tree growing.
This, they hope to achieve by having the Ministry of Environment provide 15,000 kgs of tree seedlings to enable the Ministry of Education to meet its seedlings production target of 300 million.
Tuya's ministry will also provide Machogu's ministry with technical support on seedling production and tree growing including site-species matching.
"We will jointly strengthen coordination of tree growing and seedling propagation in schools and learning institutions by cascading coordination framework beyond Focal Points in the State Departments to cover County and Sub-County levels," the CSs said.
They also plan to jointly integrate the Ministry of Environments' Jaza Miti Application and MoE’s ELIMU Application to enhance the recording and reporting of tree-growing activities by learning institutions.
The CSs also agreed to develop an Award Scheme for recognizing best performing educational institutions.
"Jointly, we will design innovative ways of mobilizing resources for seedling production and tree growing by learning institutions including seeking approval from the National Treasury to allocate 5 per cent of the MoE’s budget to tree growing activities; tap from increased Constituency Development Fund and donor a support among other sources," they said