Yap, yap hooray to all patriots!

Stephen Mpofu, Perspective
ABOUT 19 million rammed into the soil so far with 6 million more yet to follow to notch the targeted 25 million by the end of the current tree planting season.

This particular discourse is about reforesting Zimbabwe with various stakeholders playing key roles in measures meant to sustain human, domestic animals and wildlife in a world that has literally gone haywire as a result of mainly human-induced irresponsible activities which have thinned to wafer thin ozone, the layer that protects earth from the sun’s dangerous rays, resulting in global warming which spawns recurrent droughts as, have been experienced in Zimbabwe, that lead to failed crops, shortages of food and of water for domestic use as well as for animals with cyclones such as Idai which hit Zimbabwe not so long ago with floods that destroyed homes in eastern Zimbabwe and are reportedly ravaging New Zealand at present.

Deserving the chief crown in the much-vaunted tree planting season to replenish denuded forests is none other than the Forestry Commission anchored by traditional leaders and their supporters among other key players based out there in the countryside where more Zimbabweans live, and a place at which former white, racist Rhodesian colonial rulers thumb their noses as a periphery or backyard to, urban settlements which they set up as homes away from their naïve homes beyond many waters.

The Forestry Commission’s information and communications manager Violet Makoto, said the organisation was pleased with the achievement Zimbabwe had made so far in the reforestation exercise, vis-à-vis anti-global warming with trees known generally to absorb and sink dangerous carbon gasses spawned into the atmosphere from unmodified factory chimneys, coal power plants, veld fires in offending countries, et cetera, with the trees also playing an important role in stabilising the soil against erosion

She added that the Forestry Commission had other conservation strategies that were employed in communities such as the management of indigenous forests that can be strategically utilised for the benefit of the country.

In floods currently reported in some parts of our country trees are, for instance, controlling the movement of the water.
Makoto said the Forestry Commission was also fulfilling the mantra “teach them young” by planting trees at schools.

For people born and raised in rural areas trees are known to provide nutritional fruits that mothers bring home to their children along with firewood harvested in the bush, not to mention herdsman who munch and enjoy wild fruits to add to their nutritional values.

Trees are therefore, collectively life’s sine qua non.
All things considered, the Forestry Commission deserves unqualified laudation for fulfilling to the letter the popular philosophy: “A country is built by its own people”.