Serena Amboseli. To date, Serena Hotels has planted 6.64 million trees
across East Africa. With a mature tree consuming 21.8kg of carbon
dioxide in a year, the carbon footprint is greatly minimised. PHOTO |
SERENA HOTELS
As the world celebrated the International Day of Forests on
March 21, countries were yet again reminded to push increase efforts to
plant more trees and forests.
This year’s theme was “Forests and Education.”
“Our
aim is to get a message out that indigenous tree and shrubs are vital
for healthy biodiversity and human well-being,” said UN environment
ecosystems expert Tim Christophersen.
At the One Planet
Summit held in Nairobi last week, government and business leaders
pledged millions of dollars, including €40 million ($45.4 million) by
the French Development Agency and more than $50 million committed by the
European Investment Bank.
Some $100 million was committed out of a target of $300 million.
Ban on logging
The leaders also launched the Land Degradation Neutrality Fund, a
global impact investment vehicle developed by the United Nations
Convention to Combat Desertification and Mirova (Natixis) to support
sustainable land use practices globally and restore degraded land.
The anchor investors are the European Investment Bank and the French Development Agency.
Africa
loses approximately 150,220 square kilometres of forest being to
deforestation every year, the continent lost about 34 million hectares
of forest between 2000 and 2010.
Nearly one decade
later the situation is worsening. If the high deforestation rates
persist, it is estimated that up to 30 per cent of forests will
disappear by 2030.
East Africa alone has lost about six million hectares of forest. However, Rwanda grew its forest cover from 12.9 per cent to 29.6 per cent between 1990 and 2017.
East Africa alone has lost about six million hectares of forest. However, Rwanda grew its forest cover from 12.9 per cent to 29.6 per cent between 1990 and 2017.
Tanzania,
the region’s most forested country, lost an estimated 412,000 hectares
of forest to deforestation per annum between 1990 and 2015, as the
country’s forest cover fell by 11 per cent.
The region’s 107 million hectares of forest shrank by more than nine per cent, to 98 million hectares, between 1990 and 2000.
But
all is not lost as several organisations are engaged in reforestation
programmes through the Kenya Forestry Service and its counterparts in
the region.
In Kenya, the near-total ban on logging has
been extended, while Rwanda’s tree cover grew thanks to reforestation
initiatives like the National Forest Planting Day.
Awareness
Meanwhile,
there are active programmes creating awareness about conservation.
Indeed, some organisations have chosen to plant trees all-year round,
instead of just one day in the year.
In Kenya, Serena
Hotels introduced a tree-planting programme at the Amboseli National
Park about 27 years ago, in 1991. To date, working with the local
community, about 1.5 million trees have been planted.
Serena
Hotels has naturalists at all of its properties, who interact with
community leaders, sensitising locals on the importance of trees and
getting them involved in the tree-planting.
They also visit schools and teach the children what types of trees to plant, and how to take care of them.
After
considering the ecology of the area, the naturalists normally plant
indigenous trees that have a high survival rate even in tough weather
conditions.
Serena Hotels says its tree planting
efforts are in line with SDG 13 about taking urgent action to combat
climate change and its impacts, and SDG 15 on the sustainable management
of forests, combating desertification, and halt ing and reversing land
degradation.
Roping in school children
To
date, Serena Hotels has planted 6.64 million trees across East Africa.
With a mature tree consuming 21.8kg of carbon dioxide in a year, the
carbon footprint is greatly minimised.
At Amboseli
Serena Safari Lodge, seeds from fruits in its kitchen are distributed to
locals who grow them and sell the fruit back to the hotel.
“The
current focus is on avocados, mangoes, pawpaw and watermelon trees,
which the lodge nurtures, donating 100,000 fruit seedlings to the local
community,” said lodge manager Kathurima Mburugu.
Benson,
the resident naturalist at Serena Mountain Lodge, said, “I encourage
our surrounding community and schoolchildren to plant indigenous trees.
Educating
the community on the importance of tree planting has been reinforced
through collaborations with the Kenya Wildlife Services, the Kenya
Forest Service and the Community Forest Association.”
Having
more trees means greater biodiversity. At Amboseli, reforestation has
led to more sightings of cheetahs, lions, the rare cerval cat and the
Verraux eagle owl.
In Rwanda, Wilderness Safaris, which
operates Bisate Lodge near Volcanoes National Park, started a
reforestation project last year to plant trees around the park near the
lodge, on a site jointly selected with the Fossey Fund.
The project, called the Karisoke Forest, covers a 1,400-square-metre hillock.
Mountain
gorillas in Rwanda live inside the protected park, a unique mountainous
habitat that contains numerous trees and plants found only in this
area, as well as many others that the gorillas depend on for their daily
diet.
Outside the park, however, communities engage in agriculture, which has reduced much of the original forest cover.
“During
2017 and the first half of 2018 we planted nearly 20,000 indigenous
trees adjacent to the park on a 42 hectare parcel of land,” said Chris
Roche, the chief marketing officer of Wilderness Safaris.
Last
year, 130 Fossey Fund staff at Karisoke planted young Hagenia trees,
after the land was cleared of non-native eucalyptus trees and other
invasive species.
“Rather than just plant trees and
watch the restoration of the site ourselves, we engaged the larger
community and partnered with the Fossey Fund to establish the Karisoke
Forest, on part of our reforestation plot,” said Mr Roche.
No comments:
Post a Comment