Various NGOs run by environmentalists such as Lucy Kagendo who heads Green Dimension Network planted 50 saplings in Kenya last year as part of a national campaign of planting 15 billion trees by 2032, of which most of the tree saplings are dead by now.
Nowadays the tree plantation drives have increased due to their capability of removing greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere. Through the process of photosynthesis, the leaves pull in water and carbon dioxide reducing the carbon footprint and releasing oxygen as a byproduct during the day.
However, this is not only happening in Kenya but in Asia also. Take Northern India for example, the restoration efforts in the past half a century has had little or no addition to forest cover or carbon footprint reduction.
Studies by environmental researchers and nature have found that decades of expensive tree planting programs in the region have not proved effective as they did not increase the forest canopy cover and failed to contribute to climate change mitigation.
Launched in 2007, Africa’s Great Green Wall Project aimed to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land in the Sahel with vegetation and trees. According to the latest UN figures, only one fifth of that area has been planted. The project needs funding, and some of the trees have died as they did not have enough water or care given towards them.
Problems faced in Tree Plantation Campaigns;
It is often observed that tree plantation programs falter because the organisers plant the wrong trees at the wrong time at the wrong places. For instance, in Turkey, in 2019, the government decided to plant 11 million trees across the whole country. But after planting, it was found after inspection by the agriculture and forestry union that 98 percent of the trees had failed to survive in less than 3 months.
According to Nigerian researchers, people are more focussed on planting trees rather than proper implementation planning. Most often whenever these plantation campaigns are carried out, it is directly or partially involved with regional, national, and/or global politics and these factors play a major role in just the plantation and the follow ups are not maintained as the box ticking process by political leaders have already been achieved of maintaining green sustainable goals while the ultimate objective may not be achieved
Trees normally take 20 to 30 years after which they can have a bit of effect regarding climate change factors. If the sapling does not live enough to become a plant then it can be assumed how the planet is going to be after a few years from now on counting the rate of deforestation and global warming taking place.
Therefore planted saplings need to be tracked and data have to be collected from time to time measuring the rate of progress and growth of the trees so that they get proper care and live long enough to help in the fight against climate change.
