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The exhibition is being organised by the Friends of Joshua Trust.
Speaking before planting the tree of the year — called umvebe in IsiNdebele — President Mugabe urged Zimbabweans to protect the environment.
“Although the National Tree Planting Day is marked every first Saturday of December, it does not mean that trees planted after that date do not have the sanctity of trees planted on the day. Actually, as a country we should use the first Saturday to usher in a prolonged programme of tree-planting until the next National Tree Planting Day,” said President Mugabe.
He said the country needed more trees than those planted on National Tree Planting Day.
“Forests reduce the risk of floods and mudslides, they also purify the air that we breathe and regulate rainfall,” said President Mugabe.
He said with the reduced number of trees, the world was experiencing more heat waves and rain clouds had disappeared from the sky.
“The whole world is crying because of increased heat. We begin to wonder what is happening. Even Europe has cut down all its trees and they now have those that they planted after the disappearance of their rainforests,” said the President.
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He said European countries have now realised the importance of trees after destroying theirs and they are paying African and Latin American countries to stop cutting theirs.
President Mugabe said trees were very important because they provided goods and services for more than 300 million people in the world, while 1,6 billion people directly derived a living from them.
“In Zimbabwe about 20 000 people are employed in industries related to trees. 40 percent of the world’s population lives in malaria areas and when trees are reduced, the risk of infection can increase by up to 300 times,” he said.
The President encouraged Zimbabweans to preserve trees, saying the country lost about 300 000 hectares of trees every year due to human activity.
“We should have an accelerated programme for growing trees. After growing them, we have to protect them from veldfires. This year, we lost 90 000 hectares of trees to them. It is sad to note that
the more we talk about these fires the more people seem to start them,” he said.
President Mugabe said God must be laughing at our stupidity whenever people cried about water shortages.
He said people should learn to use every drop of rain that falls like the Israelis who build dams to capture water and use it for drip irrigation to plant oranges that they export all over the world.
He said God must be saying: “Stupid fools, so that you capture all this water and use it to sustain yourselves and trees.”
The President christened the sausage tree he planted “Victory.”
He said he gave the tree the name because he wanted to win the forthcoming elections.
The First Lady, Amai Grace Mugabe, planted a snot apple tree, called uxakuxaku in IsiNdebele and named it “Gracious Victory” saying Zanu-PF was sure of victory in the elections.
Speaking at the same occasion the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Francis Nhema, challenged each Zimbabwean to plant five trees a year as part of efforts to arrest climate change.
Online Reporter