Irish envoy supports tree planting
Irish Ambassador Gerry Cunningham has said tree planting is key to increasing resilience of smallholder farming systems to climate change and related risks.
He said this on Wednesday when he presided over the launch of National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi (Nasfam) 2017/2018 tree planting programme in Lilongwe.
Said Cunningham: “Students need to learn at an early age the importance of conserving trees. They need to know that their future livelihoods are threatened if current practices continue and the one that can reverse the situation are themselves. “
This year, Nasfam is targeting government primary schools and community day secondary school (CDSSs) where it plans to plant 5 000 trees at each school with the goal of planting two million trees.
In her remarks, Nasfam chief executive officer Betty Chinyamunyamu said it is sad that many trees do not survive beyond the tree planting season, a development she said is due to lack of measures that protect the trees till they grow.
Nasfam has since come up with measures to increase chances of trees survival, such as planting trees as a live or green fence around each school that they target and rewarding schools with a 75 percent survival rate of their planted trees.
This year’s, Nasfam tree planting activity is being implemented under the theme ‘Dziko lathu, Nthaka yathu (Our land, Our soil): make Schools Green.’
On the day, Nasfam and its partners planted about 6 000 trees at Chigodi CDSS in Senior Chief Mazengera’s area.n
