Minister advocates for tree planting in schools

The State Minister for Environment Mary Goretti Kitutu has directed district local government to strengthen environment policies that promote tree planting in Schools.

This should be done in order to mitigate the climate change impact.

Kitutu, a career environmentalist, made this directive while at a regional leaders' dialogue on reconnecting local governments to effective environment and natural resources management organized by the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) in Soroti district.

According to Kitutu, the National Forestry Authority (NFA) has made a donation of 80,000 trees to be planted in Teso Sub region.

She says each district in Teso will receive 10,000 fruit trees, emphasizing that her ministry will take charge of monitoring progress of this tree planting project.

Kitutu however criticized environment officers for not being practical when it comes to tree planting.

"The tree cover in Teso should have moved from 10 to 18 percent by 2020," she added.

However, Tom Okurut the executive director NEMA tasked the district chairpersons and chief administrative officers to act as focal persons in prioritizing issues of the environment.

As Okurut noted that districts have moved away from their responsibility of ensuring the environment is protected.

The dialogue was meant to reawaken the district leaders, the environment officers and stakeholders on the need to operationalize frameworks for the environment management protection to address climate change.