Kenya: Extra holiday to plant 100 million trees
In Kenya, people planted trees on a large scale on a specially created public holiday. In the fight against climate change, 100 million trees were to be planted within one day.
President William Ruto led the ambitious "National Tree Planting Day" with a planting campaign in the Kiu wetlands about 200 kilometers north of the capital Nairobi. His cabinet ministers led similar campaigns in various provinces across the country. To reach the target within one day, almost every one of the 54 million inhabitants of the East African country would have to plant two trees.
The campaign is part of the Kenyan government's plan, announced last December, to plant around 15 billion trees by 2032. The government is providing the seedlings to citizens free of charge.
Neighbouring Ethiopia had already launched a similar program in 2019. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government declared at the time that it had planted 350 million trees in one day with the help of the population. Abiy also carried out similar planting campaigns in subsequent years. However, there have always been doubts about the credibility of the numbers of trees planted cited by the government. Conservationists also point out that it is not only important to plant many trees, but also to keep the seedlings alive.
- The Kenyan government's nature conservation efforts extend beyond the recent tree planting day, aiming to plant around 15 billion trees by 2032, which is an important strategy in the face of ongoing climate change.
- The impact of climate change on global forestry is a significant concern, making science more crucial than ever in developing effective strategies for tree planting and climate crisis mitigation.
- Efforts to combat climate crisis through tree planting need not be limited to one day; continuous monitoring and care for the survival and growth of these saplings are crucial to achieving long-term nature conservation goals.
Source: www.dpa.com
