Shortly after being elected in 2022, Ruto renamed the 10th of October “Mazingira Day”, or Environment Day. 10 October is a public holiday for propaganda purposes: originally Moi Day, celebrating the day the second president of the Republic of Kenya came to power after the death of Jomo Kenyatta, over the years it became Utamaduni Day (Culture Day), but no one believed in it, then “Huduma Day” (Volunteering and Collaboration Day), and here too, well...
This year, however, the government has announced yet another tree-planting campaign. This time, they are talking about one hundred million trees in a single day, which would be tiring just to count.
Of these, seventy-one million are supposed to be fruit trees, planted in schools. Two thousand per school. Not two, not twenty: two thousand. An orchard for each school, just to ensure that the children have something to do besides their homework: pruning, harvesting and defending the mangoes from thieves and monkeys.
The message is clear: “Turudi Primary”, let's all go back to primary school, plant a tree and clean up the playground. Meanwhile, senior officials, increasingly creative with their slogans, explain that fruit will create jobs and wealth. A mango as a source of national income, an avocado as a social safety net. There is no shortage of vision.
Yet this tree-planting craze already has a long history: from the “Million Operation Gavisha” of the 1970s to the imaginatively named campaigns of every subsequent decade. Now there is the presidential programme “Jaza Miti”: 15 billion trees in ten years, or 1.5 billion per year, 125 million per month, 4 million per day. The numbers are so precise that they seem to have been taken from the Kenya National Lotto. It's a pity that, to date, “only” 783 million seedlings have sprouted. At a glance, this is still far from the target, but in the meantime, it makes headlines.
President Ruto believes in it: to prove it, on his birthday, he planted 56 trees, one for each year. Some even expected him to plant entire forests at the inauguration of the new regional governments, but logistics – and pastries – won out. In the meantime, ministers are travelling by helicopter to plant saplings in villages. An almost poetic vision: destroying the planet with fuel to save it with a hoe. Taxpayers pay, the spokesperson announces “a huge success” and everything is back to normal.
Meanwhile, the data tells a different story: from 2002 to 2024, Kenya lost 14% of its tree cover. Every year, 12,000 hectares of forest disappear, sacrificed to charcoal, timber, new roads, agriculture and various speculations. The funding? Crumbs: 14 billion shillings in a year, when at least 60 billion would be needed. In practice, the equivalent of trying to cook a whole goat with two charcoal briquettes.
Yet no one is giving up: trees are being planted as hopes are planted. Children should grow up in schools surrounded by orchards, farmers see trees as an open-air bank, ministers see them as an opportunity to show off. Perhaps, between one rumination and another, someone will remember that trees must not only be planted, but also cared for, watered and defended from the machetes of hungry men.
The truth is that Kenya dreams of having 30% forest cover by 2032. It dreams and meanwhile cuts down trees, dreams and meanwhile makes announcements, dreams and meanwhile flies in by helicopter to plant trees. Because here, forests do not die: they are replaced by statistics, slogans and, occasionally, a few mangoes.