KENYA AIRWAYS PARTICIPATES IN ‘PLANT A FUTURE’ PROJECT LAST WEEKEND
Staff and friends of Kenya Airways are involved this weekend in the planting of 250.000 tree seedlings as part of their annual ‘Plant a Future’ tree planting day at the Ngong Hills, outside the capital Nairobi. The Pride of Africa has been participating in this conservation event since 2007 and remains committed to play their part, alongside other leading commercial organizations and conservation groups, to help fund the exercise.
Forest cover in Kenya has shrunk to a lamentable 2 percent of the entire country and the Vision 2030 hopes to restore a further 8 percent of Kenya’s terrestrial area to forest cover, bringing it to a projected 10 percent overall.
Other stakeholders involved in this initiative included engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce which has used its “engineering expertise to reduce aircraft fuel burn by 70 per cent and noise by 75 per cent” to lessen the emission impact on the environment, The Coca-Cola franchise in Kenya, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, the Ministry of Forestry, Kenya Forestry Services, the University of Nairobi’s Forestry Department, Rotaract Clubs from around Nairobi and the local community.
The ‘Plant-a-Future’ initiative was originally launched in April 2007 and has so far seen over 500,000 indigenous trees planted in the Ngong Hills Forest. This year, a further 250,000 trees have been planted bringing the total to 750,000 trees. The Ngong Forest ecosystem is also a crucial water tower for the capital city, which supports most of the rivers and springs that feed into Nairobi. It has suffered extensive damage in the last 1 ½ decades due to illegal logging, wild fires and encroachment, thereby compromising the water supply to city residents. In order to fully recover the Ngong Hills need a total of over 3 million newly planted trees but planting can only be done during the rainy season to ensure that the seedlings planted actually take root.
Well done Kenya Airways and everyone else participating and ‘donating’ a weekend to volunteer.
One Response
This seems to be a new trend where corporates are contributing to a better Kenya. Over the last year the government through their new ‘Adopt a Catchment’ project supported by the Kazi Kwa Vijana programme planted over 1.3 million trees in the Naivasha area (read the full story on http://www.enchanted-landscapes.com/el_travelogue/) to protect the water sources there. Great work.