President William Ruto is expected to launch the National Tree Growing and Land Restoration Campaign on Tuesday as part of his administration’s climate action to improve forest cover.
In order to manage, conserve and expand forests sustainably towards attaining a minimum 30 per cent forest cover nationally by 2032, President William Ruto has launched a campaign that will be unveiled during a ceremony to be held at the Ngong Hills Forest.
“The Government plans to restore 10.6 million hectares of degraded landscapes for improved biodiversity and climate change mitigation and adaptation,” an advertisement of the programme states.
A joint statement by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry and the Ministry of Energy restated the government’s ambitious commitment to achieve land degradation neutrality by 2030 as a commitment to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
“The government has committed to reduce greenhouse gases through the forest sector by 50 percent by 2030, as part of its National Determined Contribution (NDC) to climate change,” it reads.
President Ruto in October announced a plan to grow five billion new trees as part of his climate change mitigation agenda.
To achieve the goal, Ruto asked every Kenyan, children included, to work towards growing 100 trees each.
He reiterated his government’s commitment to scaling up the country’s forest cover which surpassed the 10 per cent threshold set out in the Constitution after the National Forest Resources Assessment Report 2021 recorded the national forest cover at 12 per cent.
The country however missed a target of 15 per cent national forest cover set by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration.