Environment ministry to deploy aerial seeding in Monday's tree planting exercise

To make certain the project's success Environment CS Soipan Tuya who spoke to Citizen TV's Sunday Live said the government is being guided by science to know which trees will be planted and will also be deploying new-age technology to bolster the tree-planting efforts. 

One of the technologies that will be deployed at the Monday, November 13 exercise, according to the CS, is the newly-adopted  aerial seeding, which is expected to come in handy in seeding large tracts of land. 

"We will be showcasing the aerial seeding technology tomorrow, which KEFRI has started applying in some parts of the country and we hope to enhance that to scale," CS Tuya said. 

"Aerial seeding will help us plant trees across large tracks of land more cheaply in the long run," 

Although she was not specific what aerial means the Ministry would be deploying, aerial seeding, which involves sowing seeds by spraying them through aerial mechanical means, can be done by drones, planes, or helicopters. 

To ensure the highest possibility of viability, the Environment Ministry has divided Kenya's ecological zones into 11 intervention areas, detailed with special strategy for each area. 

This is in addition to taking advantage  of Kenya's two rainy seasons a year to plant as many trees as possible, particularly in drier areas where there are large tracts of unused land. 

"For instance, in Makueni, where I will be tomorrow, the types of trees that grow in this area are specific," CS Tuya said. "We have to make sure that the whole plan for dry lands is backed by sufficient science and technology." 

The tree planting exercise will be marked across Kenya's 47 counties and presided over by  Cabinet Secretaries and Governors, where all Kenyan citizens and the general public shall be expected to participate.

The move to declare November 13 a public holiday follows the decision of the Cabinet sitting in Mombasa on Friday, November 3, 2023, on the need to save the country from the devastating effects of climate change.