The World is facing uncertain times due to climate change. Several regions in Africa are facing drought and famine. Others are facing increased temperatures and irregular weather patterns.
Kenya’s President William Ruto has said his government is targeting to plant five (5) billion trees in the next five (5) years and an additional 10 billion trees by 2032.
Photo: Elizabeth Wathuti and William Ruto (Facebook)
“Communities are struggling due to high cost of living and shortage of water. The ultimate solution is greening our country to more than 30% of forest cover by 2032,” President Ruto said.
President Ruto said the impacts of climate change had affected the government’s ability to deliver social-economic transformation. The country is currently facing drought and famine in a number of its counties. Ruto said his government is determined to initiate a forest restoration and rehabilitation programme together with international partners.
“Government will secure and protect public forest and rehabilitate water towers and other ecosystems to protect them from encroachment. To resolve the capacity issue at Kenya Forest Service, I have directed the immediate recruitment of an additional 2,700 forest rangers and 600 forest officers to increase capacity and Kenya Forest Service,” President Ruto added.
Photo: William Ruto (Twitter)
Kenya plans to tap into the global carbon markets and multilateral sources in its efforts to mitigate climate change. The county will also launch the Climate Change Council to spearhead climate change actions through stakeholder engagement.
“Kenya will rally the globe towards a more ambitious global action in the 2022 United National Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt,” President Ruto said. COP27 will occur between 6 November 6, 2022, and November 18, 2022.
Kenya joins African countries like Ethiopia that are running successful tree-planting programmes. Ethiopia has been running the Green Legacy Challenge project, which had earlier targeted planting 20 billion tree seedlings within four years.
