PLANT YOUR AGE

It is with the vision of ensuring a healthy and wealthy environment for all and the mission of promoting and enhancing the quality of the environment through demonstration and facilitation of practices towards sustainable livelihoods that the Rotary Club of Nairobi (RCN) team joined together in a Plant Your Age event on 18th of November 2017 at Karura Forest to continue championing for the same.

The event marked the importance of tree planting activities in achieving sustainable development goals and fostering education for sustainable development. It saw the RCN members present plant 200 seedlings on an approved site at Karura Forest. Additionally, the RCN entered into a three year agreement with Kenya Forest Service (KFS) Karura that would see KFS maintain the seedlings/saplings for 3 years. A highlight from a message from Rtn. Dorcas Otieno was that forests form a significant part of the biophysical environment, and the interconnected of nature implies that increasing forest cover results in a better, cleaner and healthier environment this leading to sustainability.

The event was held under the Green Rotary Four Way Test banner which was able to be elaborated linking the significance of trees and increasing forest cover. The answers to the Four Way Test plainly revealed that increasing forest cover goes far beyond the natural environment, to address other essential components of a sustainable society such as enhancing the economy, while at the same inculcating societal values of peace, harmony with each other and our natural environment.

Until March 2018, our club plans to have planted 9,800 saplings.

All Rotarians were reminded that the environment has and continues to change due to increased human activities that have contributed to environmental injustice therefore it is everyone’s responsibility to stand up for its defense; exactly what the RCN district family has been doing recommending the continuation of the same towards accomplishing sustainable development vision.