First Lady Rachel Ruto has urged Kenyans to embrace clean cooking technology to reduce pressure on the existing forest cover in the country.
She expressed concern over the continuous cutting of trees and the degradation of forests, which she said will greatly disturb the country's forest cover.
She noted that environmental degradation was a serious threat to human life and called for collective intervention to save the ecosystem.
"I call on every Kenyan to take tree planting as a personal responsibility. This will in the long run see us achieve the national requirement on forest cover," said Mrs Ruto in Kitale town, Trans Nzoia County during a clean-up exercise of the town.
Ms Ruto told Kenyans to embrace alternative cooking techniques to avoid the use of charcoal, which she insisted was a threat to the forests.
"We must change our way of doing this to save the future of our nation. The government through President William Ruto's manifesto is working on environment friendly technologies to help reduce the destruction of our forest,” she said.
She said her office is engaging several stakeholders on environmental matters, both State and non-state actors to spearhead and support President Ruto's agenda to plant 15 billion trees across the country by 2032.
Speaking later at the launch of a tree planting at Kitale Forest Park, ahead of the World Environment Day on Monday, Mrs Ruto said through the 'Mama Doing Good' initiative, her office under the adopt ‘a forest strategy,’ will adopt several forest sites for the reforestation drive.
She pointed out that Kenya is yet to achieve the required forest cover due to the decreasing forest cover, which is attributed to the environmental destruction of trees for charcoal burning and logging.
The First Lady told Kenyans to be worried about the effects of climate change and embrace innovative and climate-smart technologies in agriculture.
She told farmers in Trans Nzoia to innovate maize farming to ensure they produce more to feed the country.
"A large percentage of the Kenyan land is arid and semi-arid and largely depends on this region for food. I urge farmers to invest more in agriculture following government subsidies on farm inputs," said Mr Ruto.
Ms Ruto later attended clergy and women consultative forums at Equip College, and later a youth extravaganza at Kitale Club grounds.
The First Lady was accompanied by Mrs Anne Wanjiku- the Chief Administrative Secretary in the Office of the Deputy President, Wesley Korir – the CAS Sports, Trans Nzoia Governor's First Lady Lilian Natembeya, Maendeleo ya Wanawake officials, among other local leaders.
