Tanzania Embarks on 100 Million Tree-Planting Campaign
11/29/99
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Tanzania Embarks on 100 Million Tree-Planting Campaign
Source: Panafrican News Agency. Distributed via Africa News Online.
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: November 29, 1999
Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) (Panafrican News Agency, November 29,
1999) - The Tanzanian government has directed district and provincial
administrators to effectively implement an ambitious national tree
planting campaign launched by President Benjamin Mkapa in April.
The campaign is aimed at re-greening the country by planting 100
million trees by June. Tanzania currently loses between 300,000 and
400, 000 hectares of forest annually due to rampant tree felling.
Forest cover destruction is particularly alarming in the rural areas
where shifting cultivation and livestock keeping form the key modes
of life. The country's central and north-western areas are already
threatened with accelerating desertification.
The minister of state in the vice president's office, Edward Lowassa,
issued a directive 10 November to all district commissioners to
ensure a thorough implementation of the campaign.
"Planted seedlings must be taken care of to make sure that a large
percentage of them thrives. Botanists should advise the villagers on
suitable species of trees for each region," he said.
The vice president's office is co-ordinating the campaign launched 10
April by Mkapa in Mwanza region, one of the areas affected by chronic
drought.
Media tycoon Reginald Mengi, who is chairman of the National
Environmental Management Council, has backed the exercise with
personal financial support by rewarding successful environmental
groups with cash.
Last week he gave 112,000 shillings (about 140 US dollars) to a
family that planted 3,600 trees around their home area. Some 15
million trees have been planted in Mengi's native Kilimanjaro region
through his initiative in the past five years.
Similar campaigns are going on throughout the country in urban and
rural areas, including refugee camps.
The minister for community development, women affairs and children,
Mary Nagu, recently urged Burundian refugees in the western region of
Kigoma to stop felling trees and instead join the government's green
campaign.
Like their Tanzanian hosts, the refugees rely heavily on wood fuel
for their daily energy requirements. Wood is by far the most
important source of energy in Tanzania, exceeding 90 percent of the
total national energy supply.
Apart from wood fuels demand, much of deforestation in the country is
due to unsuitable agricultural methods and over-grazing. These
activities transform natural forests into marginal lands and, as a
result, land degradation and even desertification are accelerating.