NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 4 – Environment, Climate Change and Forestry Cabinet Secretary Soipan Tuya has urged Kenyans to embrace nurturing of tree seedlings to mature as opposed to simply planting trees and leaving them to survive on their own.
“I have been telling Kenyans, across the country, if you plant a tree please develop a plan of taking care of the tree. It is better to plant one tree that you can nurture to maturity than to plant thousands of trees that you plant and go. You will not be doing anything, it will be a zero sum game,” CS Tuya said.
At the same time, CS Tuya rallied Kenya’s intensify tree growing as climate change mitigation measure saying the phenomenon had become a matter of life and death.
“The issue of climate change is now a matter of life and death. We cannot continue planting trees as pastime. We cannot continue planting trees just as a mere act of CSR,” CS Tuya cautioned.
The Cabinet Secretary spoke on Saturday at her home village of Leshuta in Narok West during a tree planting exercise at Soipan Primary School. CS Soipan founded the school during her tenure as Narok County MP.
The Cabinet Secretary recounted recent tree growing success stories including at last year’s launch of the 15 billion tree growing programme in Ngong Forest where the entire 560,000 seedlings planted were thriving because of good nurturing.
She said the tree planting activity at Soipan Primary School was part of lead-up activities for this year’s World Environment Day whose national celebration will be held on Monday in Nakuru City County and thanked the various agencies that supported the initiative includinf KFS, NEMA and the County Government of Narok.
At the same time, Hon Tuya invited Narok County residents to tomorrow’s interdenominational thanksgiving church service at her Leshuta home that will be attended by several national leaders led by President William Ruto and Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.
“Tomorrow will be an important day for me to give thanks for being appointed the first woman minister among Maa community. It is an achievement that’s worth thanking God for.
“All the churches from here will congregate to welcome the President, Deputy President and government officials to worship and thank God for the opportunity to be part of Kenya’s leadership,” the CS said.
Other speakers at the event where 2,000 tree seedlings were planted were Narok County Commissioner Isaac Masinde, Narok County Secretary John Maiyani and former area MP Samson Ole Tuya among others.
Mr Masinde said the Government will soon mount a major crackdown on perpetrators of illegal forest activities in Narok County including charcoal burning and illegal logging.
