West Pokot County Residents Asked To Embrace Tree Planting To Curb Climate Change Effects

By Benson Aswani,

Deputy Secretary for the State Department of Health Mawira Mungage has called upon the residents of West Pokot County to embrace tree planting as one way of curbing the effects of climate change.

Speaking at Lelan in Pokot south sub county where he led the tree planting exercise Mr. Mungage said as a department in charge of tree planting in West Pokot, they are aiming to plant two million trees every year.

Mr. Mungage further said through tree planting, the country will be able to prevent diseases that result from climate change.

“As a ministry in charge of health we know when climate change is negative, people will get sick. And the shift of department is moving from curative to preventive, and I think there is a connection between a good environment and the health of our people,” said Mr.Mungage.

The director of public health in the State Department of Health John Ndung’u said that they have planted 11,000 trees in Thursday’s exercise including fruit trees to ensure that as citizens take care of the environment, they also ensure food security.

“We managed to plant 11,000 trees including fruit trees because we also want to fight hunger. As we try to conserve the environment, we also want to make West Pokot part and parcel of the food basket for this country,” said Mr. Ndung’u.

His statement was emphasized by the chief officer in the department of Water, Environment and Natural Resources West Pokot County, Leonard Kamsait, who further said that the county government is committed to ensure that it achieves 20 million tree planting target in a period of 10 years.

“We are very much committed to tree planting exercise as one way of dealing with climate change. We aim to plant 20 million trees in 10 years,” said Mr. Kamsait.