Political party sets focus on planting trees ahead of 2022 polls
The United Green Movement Party (UGM) is pledging an ambitious programme of planting trees in the run-up to the August 2022 general elections.
UGM Secretary-General (SG) Hamisa Zaja says the party seeks to focus on the environment and the agriculture sector to empower the people economically.
Zaja spoke at the Kikambala Catholic Parish in Kilifi County during a party popularization and tree planting campaign where 500 seedlings including food trees were donated to the community around the parish.
The tree planting exercise that targeted the parishioners was marked with training on how to plant trees and ways of protecting and caring for them.
Zaja said the politics UGM wants to champion in the run-up to the 2022 campaigns are that of environmental and agricultural revival.
She is urging Kenyans to embrace tree planting and protecting the environment for posterity noting that forests play an important role in livelihoods besides offering help in the fight against climate change and global warming.
Zaja noted that UGM is determined to help Kenya with an ambitious project aimed at increasing the country’s forest cover from the current 7 per cent to 15 per cent by the year 2022.
She said UGM in October last year launched a campaign with an aim of planting one billion trees to help achieve the 10 per cent forest cover.
To achieve this, the party has established polling station committees for the various aspirants across the country to help in tree planting.
The UGM SecretaryGeneral contends that community participation is key when it comes to forest management and protection.
She said so far, they have planted cash crops and fruit trees in Nairobi, Kwale, Tana River, Kilifi and other counties whose objective is to regain lost forest land areas in the community.
"Tree planting exercise by UGM is part of mitigating climate change besides building the resilience of communities to effect climate change which cannot be achieved without engaging in tree planting in the environment," Zaja stated.
Mgala Rasi who is an MCA aspirant for the Mtopeni ward in Kilifi South Constituency said UGM is determined to plant indigenous and exotic tree seedlings during this planting season and asked all stakeholders to partake in the tree-planting campaign.
Rasi who is also UGM branch organizing secretary for Kilifi further said tree planting is important because trees can serve as a source of livelihood.
He emphasized that there were great opportunities in the forestry sector for improvement of livelihoods only that for a long time the opportunity to plant trees as cash crops at farm level has been missed.
Kikambala Catholic Church Parish official William Mghanga gave assurance that the parishioners will help in protecting the variety of seedlings they have planted which aimed at restoring the forest and the environment.
Mghanga urged the parishioners to plant more trees to rehabilitate the lost forest cover and advised them to desist from the indiscriminate exploitation of the forest resources.
