By Grace Samuel
Reports say a Kenyan, Geoffrey Mosoku and his two daughters took part of in the Kenyan first National Day of Tree Planting as they were seen digging a seedling deep into the ground of the Ngong forest in country’s capital, Nairobi.
The public holiday, announced last week, is part of a government initiative to plant 15bn trees by 2032 to tackle the climate crisis and deforestation amid worsening impacts such as a severe drought in the country and the wider Horn of Africa region.
Government officials led the tree-planting activities in different areas of the country and the environment even as the environment minister urged the public to participate rather than use the holiday “to attend to other private and social obligations”.
It was gathered that seedlings were available to the public through local forest agencies and chiefs’ offices across the country.
“Conservation of the environment is the urgent and collective responsibility of our time,” the Kenyan president, William Ruto, who launched the tree-growing activities in Makueni county in eastern Kenya, said on X, formerly known as Twitter.