How simply celebrating your age can make Kenya a green paradise

Kisii residents led by Kisii County Secretary Patrick Lumumba and MCAs cuts a cake as they joined other leaders across the country to celebrated ODM leader Raila Odinga's birthday. [Sammy Omingo, Standard]

Gabon has dominated news lately due to the coup that toppled former President Ali Bongo. For me, Gabon should also be in the news for a better, nay greener reason - its 88 per cent forest cover!

This makes Gabon one of the most forested countries in the world and proves that Kenya too can realise a 40 per cent tree cover by 2035.

As we celebrated the annual Plant Your Age Day on September 14th 2023, our team demonstrated how to practically achieve this tree revolution.

Our first tool for executing this tree revolution is our demographics. Each of Kenya's 55.3 million people should be supported and nudged to be a tree warrior who fights tooth and nail for a rapid, sustainable tree cover expansion.

Accordingly, just like in Sun Tzu's Art of War, 'victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.'

In this context, 'winning' first means having a revolutionary, winning mindset and strategy.

Kenyans' median age is 19.6 years. If every Kenyan pledged to plant an average 19.6 trees annually, we would end up with 1.08 billion trees annually. In seven years, this tree revolution would deliver 7.5 billion trees.

For that to happen, all tree warriors would have to shift their mindset from mere tree planting to tree growing. While tree planting simply places a seedling into the soil and forgets about it, tree growing nurtures that seedling to full maturity.

If we embrace this challenge, Kenya will become a green beacon of hope that could trigger a green revolution across Africa!

That way, Africa's own forest cover can eventually grow from the current 22.7 per cent to at least 40 per cent.

Our second tool for executing a tree revolution is our private sector. Yes, our businesses, as well as learning institutions, faith-based institutions, and non-profit organisations, can play a lead role in growing trees across Kenya.

For instance, Safaricom has a market capitalisation of Sh621 billion, which makes it East and Central Africa's most valuable company.

The company has an extensive, active subscriber base of 46 million people. If just half of these subscribers were incentivised to plant trees equivalent to their ages, every year, that would amount to 3.75 billion new trees within just seven years. Safaricom can be a corporate tree warrior through discounted airtime or internet bundles.

In the same vein, a bank such as KCB could follow suit by turning its 28.9 million customers into tree warriors. The goal would be for half of these customers to grow trees equivalent to the average Kenyan age of 19.6 years, for seven successive years.

This would add 2.37 billion trees to Kenya's landscape. Here the incentives could include discounted bank charges and corporate social investment programmes. Oil marketers too can support this cause, as major stakeholders in the climate change conversation.

Vivo Oil for instance could decide that for every two litres of oil imported, a tree seedling costing about Sh30 is planted. Of their estimated 1.3 billion litres annually they would plant 650 million trees annually.

After seven years, Vivo could contribute to the earth's lungs with 4.55 billion trees. A green signature that could be sealed through discounted oil pump prices.

In the non-profit sector, an international organisation such as the World Vision could integrate tree growing into existing programmes so that the 3.1 million people in its sphere of work plant trees equivalent to their ages.

This would result in 425.32 million trees planted over seven years. Similarly, embassies in Kenya could rally the estimated 1.5 million foreigners to plant 19.6 trees per person, then we would achieve 205.6 million trees in seven years.

These simple yet practical structured steps demonstrate a possibility of growing 18.8 billion trees in seven years. This would seal Kenya's emerging role as a veritable leader in greening the earth. The secret lies in turning our ages into annual tree growing targets. Think green, act green!