Doctor Isaac Kalua Green believes that Kenyans can make a decent income through the Planting Trees initiative backed by President William Ruto.
Speaking in an interview on Thursday, March 20, on World Forest Day, the environmentalist behind the Green Africa Group listed furniture making and beekeeping among the avenues available.
He further noted that some individuals can engage in collecting seeds, planting trees or nurturing them for a better outcome.
Kalua explained that individuals and institutions stuck in trying to monetise the project can get advice from Green Africa.
"We are supporting the process of Green Africa villages. This could be homes or various institutions including faith-based to show how to make money," he advised.
"We studied different areas to show how people can make money through tree growing. Do you collect seeds, plant the trees, nurture seedlings, make furniture, or grow honey and beekeeping?"
"Where do you place this? What kind of trees do you grow around that place so you can make money? How do you do green energy and water harvesting?" He added.
He further explained that there were 10 different initiatives that Kenyans could explore in the race to plant 15 billion trees in 10 years but challenged the state to develop favourable policies to benefit communities.
"There is an opportunity for institutions that are growing trees and have no way of how to use them to benefit," he remarked.
"It is very important to have a policy around community development so that those that are directly engaged around matters of conservation can get a lot of income that improves their livelihoods."
President William Ruto launched the project aimed at planting 15 billion trees in 10 years in an effort to reverse the worsening effects of climate change.
Subsequently, he set aside November 13 last year as a national holiday for planting trees to achieve a markup of 150 million tree seedlings in the ground.
During the tree-planting holiday, the Head of State had set aside over 500 million seedlings that were planted across the country.
Mid this month, some of the workers tendering to the trees lamented that it was becoming untenable for them to continue working without stipends.
Kalua earlier argued that the State had not engaged with the community therefore making it impossible for individuals to take care of the trees planted.
"We started on a wrong footing on matters of environmental conservation when we talk about trees particularly. So numbers are quickly made up to show that you are doing something yet you are not connecting with the communities," he observed.
In areas like Kapenguria, workers revealed that the drought had affected the project leading to the drying up of numerous trees under the project.
