November 13 tree planting exercise: What you need to know

Environment CS Soipan Tuya. [File, Standard]

Monday, November 13, was recently declared a national holiday with Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki saying the day would be used to plant trees.

The announcement came as a surprise with many Kenyans wondering where the seedlings will be distributed from as well as where planting would take place.

Environment Cabinet Secretary Soipan Tuya has since made a clarification saying the government has made necessary arrangements to ensure the tree planting activity runs smoothly.

"We are going to have a national event presided over by President William Ruto in Makueni. There, we will have over 100,000 seedlings and more so that even those who come to that event will get something to plant. Additionally, we will have county-level events simultaneously," said Tuya during an interview on Spice FM.

Tuya says her ministry has assigned each Cabinet Secretary two counties to provide leadership so as to ensure the event is successful countrywide.

Further, County Commissioners have been tasked to convene technical planning teams in every county and ensure that there are tree nurseries across the country.

The nurseries will be available at Kenya Forest Service stations while the seedlings will be provided by the Kenya Forestry Research Institute.

Every county will have different types of seedlings depending on the environmental factors and their commercial use.

The seedlings will be divided into several intervention areas including agroforestry, arid and semi-arid, gazette forests, coastal mangroves, and bamboo.

The Ministry of Environment is expected to issue details on where the seedlings will be collected before the planting date.