The government, through the Interior and Public Service ministries, has embarked on an elaborate plan to attain the United Nations threshold of 10 percent tree-cover across the country by 2022.
The Greening Kenya Campaign, by the National Youth Service and the Kenya Prisons Service, seeks to develop 50 million tree seedlings for distribution to communities across the country by May next year.
Kenya’s current forest cover stands at 7.6 percent and operates on an annual water deficit of 353 cubic meters per capita as supply stands at 647 cubic meters per capita against the globally recommended threshold of 1,000 cubic meters per capita annually.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i, said the ministries’ efforts were in response to the tree cover shortfall Kenya faces.
“In spite of concerted efforts to combat desertification and its consequent effects of climate change, our country’s total forest cover still falls short of the United Nations’ recommended standard of 10 percent,” he said.
“It is against this backdrop that the government recently initiated a progressive project aimed at increasing the country’s tree cover from the current seven per cent to more than 15 percent by 2022.”
Approximately 12 million seedlings are being grown at the Ruiru Prison farm and similar nurseries have been set up at 27 centres across the country’s eight regions – Central, Eastern, Rift Valley, Western, Nyanza, Coast, North Eastern and Nairobi.
More seedlings will be developed and distributed from the capital.
The programme has received the endorsement of the United Nations Environment Programme, whose Director of Governance Affairs, Jorge Laguna-Celis, lauded the partnership between the ministries.
“These actions, partnerships and joint efforts of various ministries and national organs will definitely lead to the reversal of adverse effects on our environment, which we see manifested in drought, desertification and flooding among other consequences,” he said.
The Environment ministry says that in order to realize the 10 percent national forest cover by 2022, the government, private sector and communities must develop and plant 360 million seedlings every year for the next five years.
This amounts to 1.8 billion seedlings in the said period.