Madi leaders rally schools to plant trees

Adjumani | The Madi cultural institution, elders forum, religious leaders, and district local government of Adjumani, in collaboration with Defenders Protection Initiative and Friends of Zoka, are rallying schools to plant trees in response to the region’s environmental destruction.

The collaboration aims to strengthen schools’ capacity for proper tree planting and woodlot establishment in order to improve environmental restoration.

Williams Amanzuru, team leader of Friends of Zoka, told students today at Adjumani Secondary School that the goal of demonstrating tree planting is to ensure that schools can grow trees in a sustainable manner.

“If trees are not planted in the right way, their survival rate will be less than 10%. We want to improve the skills and the capacities of institutions such that we can have tree survival of about 90%,” Amanzuru said.

Amanzuru continued, saying that their goal is to empower the next generation, particularly students, who can learn, apply, and share with others in the community in order to accomplish efforts to repair the environment that has been destroyed.

However, Fred Drapari, DPI’s coordinator of lands and environment, stated that the initiative aims to ensure that trees can be planted to promote change and support the green revolution.

He stated that they are working with Friends of Zoka, which advocates for environmental protection in the West Nile region, cultural and religious leaders, and the district local government to address the challenges of environmental destruction and the climate change crisis.

Paulino Vuso, chairperson of the elder’s forum in Adjumani stated that as the elder’s forum, they are advocating for the protection and conservation of the environment.

“As elders our purpose is to encourage the young people to plant more trees, we have done damage to the environment and we want to leave Uganda green in the hands of the young people for the future generation,” Vuso said.

“As the cultural institution of the Madi, we have agreed that environmental conservation is going to be our top priority and embark on mindset change so that many people take up tree planting which has got plenty of advantages,” cultural leader of the Adropi clan, Moses Chokiri, said when speaking to the students.

The cultural leaders further stressed that tree planting can be a source of income and can create jobs for many youth and women who are not employed.

The district Khadi of Madi district, Haji Ramadan Baiga explained that tree planting is not a new aspect of life but religiously, he said, man is expected to coexist with other plants and animals.

Francis Oja, Adjumani district forest officer, said 25 percent of the district’s 31,000 square kilometres was forest cover, but 15 percent have since been destroyed as a result of refugees’ arrival from the 1980s.

Another factor is rapid urbanisation leading to increased demand for charcoal and wood fuel, and illegal logging.

Ojja, however, noted that the initiative by friends of Zoka to demonstrate tree planting is a positive initiative that will help recover the lost trees adding that schools also consume a lot of firewood.