President to officiate at Vic Falls tree planting

Herald Reporter
President Mugabe will officiate at this year’s National Tree Planting Day commemorations during the zanu-pf national conference in Victoria Falls next week where he is set to launch the onset of tree planting for the 2015-2016 season.

However, officials from the Forestry Commission will today grace provincial commemorations across the country.

National Tree Planting Day is observed every first Saturday of December since 1980 when President Mugabe launched it.

It marks the start of the tree planting season which runs from the onset of the rainy season right up to the end of April.

Forestry Commission information and communications manager Ms Violet Makoto yesterday said this year’s theme for National Tree Planting Day commemorations was “Trees and Forests – Protecting Soils for Food Security and Nutrition”.

“President Mugabe is going to officially launch the National Tree Planting Day at the zanu-pf National People’s Conference next week,” she said.

“But officials from the Forestry Commission will go to the provincial commemorations tomorrow. The target for the 2015-2016 season is 15 million trees. In 2014-2015 season, the target was 12 million but we surpassed that and planted 12,5 million on record.”

Every year, President Mugabe plants trees at venues of the zanu-pf national conferences or congress.

Ms Makoto said the Forestry Commission would continue with its afforestation and re-afforestation programmes through a three-pronged approached.

“We are targeting churches because they have a huge following. So we work with them so that they come up with their own programmes of tree plant- ing.

“We also engage politicians. For instance, President Mugabe is the one who spearheads national tree planting every year. We also work with traditional leaders so that we can access their communities,” said Ms Makoto.

She said one of the major challenges was deforestation with at least 330 000 trees being cut down every year.

One of the driving causes of deforestation was the demand for firewood.

As such, Ms Makoto said, it was important for communities to plant fast maturing trees such as eucalyptus instead of indigenous trees that take decades to grow.