As President William Ruto launched the Forestry and Land Restoration Acceleration programme dubbed Jaza Miti, which targets planting 15 billion trees in 10 years, I wondered what feedback the environment would give.
Maybe it would say: "Thank you Mr President for choosing to give back to the society down here, which has been traumatised due to human actions such as deforestation and pollution. I know you know you are not doing us a favour but doing what must be done."
I am also reminded of a video by some climate proponents that shows a dinosaur storming a global climate change conference where the requisite urgency lacks, and among other rhetorical questions, asks why humans insist on engineering their own extinction and if they know what it means to be extinct. All are alarmed.
Now that the President has started to JazaMiti from Kona Baridi in Ngong Hills Forest, to achieve one of the biggest such reforestation efforts in Kenya's history, what happens in the grassroots?
To increase Kenya's forest cover to 30 per cent by 2032 from the current 12.13 per cent will require civic education, accountability and political will. This includes earning the support of all county governments and ensuring chiefs and their assistants, District Officers and County Commissioners, who are the President's eyes on the ground, watch out for any land degradation activities such as sand mining or deforestation. Some of the hurdles to such huge programmes is corruption and an uninterested public. Besides selling this idea to the public to ensure they support it, since they live with the trees, the reporting on this programme and accountability must be done to precision. The vehicle that takes us to Destination-15-billion-trees-by-2032 must also preserve a seat for the unseen and voiceless that do not sit in boardrooms where decisions are made. They are the other living creatures, abused environment, depleted forests, drying rivers and lands rendered barren because of rains that stopped showing up when most needed due to global warming.
If achieved, this programme will complement the many other steps taken to deal with problems occasioned by climate change, including water stress, weakened economy, conflict, deaths, poverty and loss of livelihoods and property. It will help eradicate those sad images from Garisaa, Turkana, Kajiado and Marsabit whenever there is drought. This year featured many global conferences around environment and biodiversity. They include the G20 in Indonesia and UNFCCC's COP27 in Egypt, followed by the UN Biodiversity's COP15 in Canada.
Just asking: What would nature say about the state of deliberations at the conferences? Nature could be looking at us and wondering if we are ignorant or just being stubborn. Maybe having a seat left empty for the unseen guest at each of these talks could remind us to act fast; that nature can live without us yet we cannot live without nature. Nature, not humans, is in charge, and all actions that lead to destruction of nature lead to our very own extinction.
Truth is we do not need to take our sweet time to decide whether we want to do what is right to manage the global warming; whether we want to have the Loss and Damage Fund, Adaptation or the Climate Funds; whether fossil fuels proliferation should continue or stop, and whether deforestation must be dealt with urgently. There is really no time. But ignorance will be the end of us.
And so, Mr President, now that you seem to know that nature butters our bread, please help JazaMitiHaraka so that we do not engineer our extinction.
The writer is communications manager at GreenFaith