The Principal Secretary (PS) for Petroleum, Mr. Mohamed Liban, has underscored the importance of planting more trees to control climate change, which is threatening pastoralists’ livelihoods.
Mr. Liban said the government was championing the tree planting campaigns, so that the social economic benefits attached to trees could eventually outweigh the risks resulting from climate change and felling of trees.
He said the government campaign targets to raise the country’s tree cover from 24 to 70 per cent in the next 10 years, with all the government agencies and ministries given a goal of the number of trees to plant and conserve every year.
To overcome the challenges, such as losing thousands of livestock from drought and flooding occasioned by soil erosion during the rainy seasons in the northern region of the country, the PS said the resident communities should be involved in the tree planting exercises to reverse the adverse trends.
Mr. Liban was speaking at Uhuru Primary School in Isiolo town during the National Mazingira Day tree planting exercise, where he was accompanied by the political, religious and National Government Administrative Officers led by County Commissioner David Kiprop.
The PS said the country lost about 2.4 million livestock to drought last year, which could have been averted had the country planted more trees to cover the largest portion of land, which could arrest famine and reduce destruction of property during the rainy season’s floods.
He urged the County Commissioner and the County government of Isiolo to join hands with schools and the communities to ensure many trees were planted during the short rains season of October, November and December to increase the cover.
Mr. Liban said the County has a target of 58 million and only 7 million were planted so far and a lot of effort is required to achieve the goal.
Many of the speakers cited lack of water at the primary school as the hindrance to conserving the 400 trees that were planted during the event, but the PS said he would pressurise a number of government agencies that have the water components to see that Uhuru Primary and Secondary schools that share common ground get a borehole.
He urged the School Management Board to prepare an official Bill of Quantities (BQs) for the borehole, which he would use to approach the well-wishers, so that the borehole could be sunk at the Institution.
Liban also pledged to mobilise resources from his Department, to have the trees planted in the area and schools fenced to keep animals from destroying the newly planted trees.
By David Nduro
