A tree is a source of life. Imagine if the world had no trees. All of us would be dead. The fury of Mother Nature as manifested through Global Warming has partly been attributed to massive destruction of world forest cover.
Perhaps human beings will realize the power of trees when the last tree on earth will fall, last bird dead, last fish consumed, and concrete standing all over around us. That is when a human being will maybe realize that money is not life but trees are.
Kenya’s forest cover is wanting. According to the UN section FAO, 6.1 percent or 3,467,000 hectares of Kenya is forested. Of this, 18.9 percent is classified as primary forest, the most biodiverse and carbon-dense form of forest.
Kenya has 197,000 ha of planted forest according to FAO. Between 1990 and 2010, Kenya lost an average of 12,050 hectares or 0.32 percent per year of forest cover. In total, between 1990 and 2010, Kenya lost 6.5% of its forest cover, around 241,000 hectares.
Kenya’s forests contain 476 million metric tons of carbon in living forest biomass. Kenya has some 1847 known species of amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles according to figures from the World Conservation Monitoring Centre.
4 percent of species in Kenyan forests are endemic. This means they exist in no other country on earth but Kenya. 3.8 percent of them, sadly, are threatened by cutting down the trees.
In the spirit of International Youth Day, Kenyans, through the State Department for Youth is marking the National Youth Week. During this week, various exercises aimed at empowering the youth to take place.
On day 3 of the National Youth Week, Kenyan youths led by various leaders like CS Joe Mucheru, are taking part in a tree-planting exercise at the National Youth Service (NYS) Yatta Field.
The target of this exercise, according to CS Mucheru is to encourage the youth to plant at least 10,000 trees as they move toward the International Youth Day on August 12, 2020.
As a youth, you can be part of the future. You can protect the now and the future by planting a tree. In your own capacity, you can get a tree from Kenya Forest Service either for free or for as little as 20 shillings and the future will be defined through you.