Mazingira day
Youths in Samburu County have been urged to embrace regular tree planting activities to increase forest cover and mitigate communal conflicts brought by climate change.
Speaking today at the Maralal GK prison during the second Mazingira day celebrations, Samburu Journalists Association Vice chairperson Nancy Leaduma called on the young people living in Arid and Semi-Arid (ASAL) areas to plant and grow more trees as a way of reducing perennial conflicts over resources in future.
Leaduma stressed the need to involve the youth from ASAL areas in creating environmental impact through environmental education and tree growing. “In the next ten years the trees planted today will increase the forest cover and as a result there will be rain water and pasture thereby reducing violent inter communal conflicts,” she said.
Samburu Journalists Association Vice chairperson Nancy Leaduma waters a tree seedling at the Maralal GK Prison to mark today’s Mazingira day. The scribe called on the youths to make tree planting a regular affair in order to increase forest cover and reduce conflict over water and pasture among pastoralists.
Maralal GK Prison Officer in charge Justus Aganyana said that over 300 trees were planted during today’s exercise adding that the institution plans to plant ten thousand trees by April 2025. “In order to actualise the government’s target of planting 15 billion trees by 2032, we have a target of planting ten thousand trees within our compound by April of 2025,” he said.
Also joining the Maralal GK prison officers and inmates to celebrate the second Mazingira day celebrations was the Media Council of Kenya (MCK) officials led by Jackson Karanja and the Katiba Institute.