By Tendai Chisiri
With the first Saturday of December being the National Tree Planting Day, Eco Ethics Zimbabwe in partnership with Forest Commission and Harare City Council (HCC) planted 7 Acacia trees at Harare Gardens in commemoration of the event on Saturday.
ForestryCommission provided Acacia trees whilst local authority provided the land as Eco Ethics Zimbabwe president Tendai Guvamombe and colleagues local live and those abroad through virtual joined the rest of the nation in commemorating the national event.
Eco Ethics founder based in America Madhvi Chittor who is 11 years old applauded the people of Zimbabwe for commemorating the national tree planting day.
Speaking during the event through virtual , the Founder of the Eco Ethics Movement, Madhvi Chittoor, said it is crucial to include persons with disabilities in climate action programmes so as to achieve climate justice.
“This year, we decided to prioritize persons with disabilities in our climate action programmes after realizing that they were being left out in many areas of the environment. By doing so we are trying to achieve climate justice. As Ecoethics Movement, we shall continue to include them in our future programmes.
Forestry Commission Board Chair, Commissioner Veronica Gundu- Jakarasi commended Eco Ethics Zimbabwe for commemorating national tree planting day.
“Let me first by recognising the organisers of the event Eco Ethics Zimbabwe and our colleagues from United States. We thank you very much for having this vision to take care of mother nature”, she said in her remarks.
“U want to recognise the Harare City Council for their partnership to this event which is advancing the mandate of the Forest Commission to increase tree planting”, she added.
She also said as the nation celebrates tree planting day, it has been celebrated in an unique way as people marginalised and vulnerable are also recognised.
“So today we are commemorating national tree planting day with the persons with disability and they are showing their experiences and how climate change is affecting them and the importance of planting trees”, she said.
HCC chief environmental scientist and chairperson of National Determined Contribution (NDC) subcommittee of the mitigation and focal point (All local authorities) Charles Mabika said it was a honour to gather for the commemorations.
“It is a very important day .The issue of tree planting we are in it as HCC and we challenge everybody to take part in this important issue.
“We must remember that the earth we are living today we have to keep it for the future generation. Let us preserve it for the betterment of the future generation”, he said.
Henry Kane, Co-Founder of Thisability Disabled Persons Organization expressed happiness towards the involvement of disability communities in environmental programmes. According to Kane, the International Day for Persons with Disabilities was celebrated with a difference.
” Persons with disabilities have been remembered. This becomes the first time that we have been included in matters of the environment. On that note, I wish to commend the Ecoethics Movement for including us in this year’s tree planting.”
Forestry Commission has targeted 25 million trees to be planted for the 2022/23 tree planting season. This surpasses the 2021/22 season where they had a 20 millon target and around 18.4 million trees where planted.
Forestry Commission’s target is to look at various activities happening in the country for example they have the plantation forest sector in Manicaland, the commercial sector where they have to replant what would have been harvested during the year. That figure planted in the plantation sector contributes to the 25 million.
Also in the tobacco sector, Forestry Commission have a specific sector programme called tobacco wood energy programme. In this programme, they are promoting planting of trees species like currently the eucalyptus for planting by the tobacco farmers so that they can create their own source of fuel for tobacco. So whatever they would be planting in those farms would be contributimg to the target of 25 million trees.
In the communal areas, they are also promoting the multi-use trees, fruit trees and indegenious species and all that contributes to the target.They have a schedule of tree plant for different sites for the season across the country and this includes schools, community centres, churches and farmers’ land.
The theme for this year planting season is “Trees and Forest Ecosytems Restoration and Improving Livelihoods. This is a 5-year running theme and it was started to be used last year and is in line with the UN declared decade for forest restoration where Forestry Commission is saying forest and trees have a role to play in people rehabilitating the degraded lands that have been degraded through practices that we take as human beings.
Every year, Forestry Commission come up with a tree specie that they promote as the tree of the year and usually it would be a indegenious tree. This year’ tree of the year is the Syzgiuk cardatum which is the Botanical name whilst the English name is Waterberry with the Shona name being Mukute/Muhute and the Ndebele name is Umdoni/Imuswi.
This is essentially done to inform Zimbabweans of the valuable species and this has been done for a number of years and evey year. The main aim is to actually to encourage the widespread and propagate of that tree whilst raising awareness of its existence and protection.
This is not the only tree that should be planted by but should be ceremonisoulsy be planted when people are emngaged in their various tree planting activites they would be taking throught the tree planting season.
The event to mark the commemorations for Tree Planting Day was held by Ecoethics Zimbabwe in partnership with the ForestryCommission and the City of Harare on Saturday 3rd of December at Harare Gardens. Participants from Kenya, Nigeria, Siera Leon, Zambia, India, Bangladesh and USA joined the live proceedings via the zoom platform.
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