Morogoro govt plants a million trees

Morogoro. The Morogoro Municipal Council has planted a total of 1,022,240 trees in water catchment areas, around Mindu dam and in open spaces in efforts to control environmental degradation and climate change challenges.

The seedlings include those of mahogany, cedar, iroko (mvule), teak, and eucalyptus, which have been planted in 29 wards in Morogoro Municipality.

Tree planting, funded by the Bohora Community in the region, was conducted by the municipal council in collaboration with various environmental stakeholders and individuals from April 15 to June this year. Speaking to The Citizen on Sunday, during tree planting besides Morogoro River, Municipal Forestry officer Zahoro Mhina said that already more than a million trees have been planted in the last two months.

Mr Mhina explained that various stakeholders turned up to help conserve the environment by planting the trees in specified areas.

“This is a sustainable exercise and we continue to uncover more areas prone to environmental destruction so that we can plant more trees in collaboration with stakeholders like the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), the Morogoro Urban Water and Sewerage authority (Moruwasa), Wami-Ruvu basin, non-governmental organisations and institutions and individuals,” he said.

For his part, the Bohora Community Secretary for Morogoro Region, Mr Abizar Vejlani, said that the organisation has the culture of planting 200,000 tree seedlings each year worldwide. Mr Vejlani said in Morogoro, already the community had planted 100 trees.

“We’ve a programme of planting at least 200,000 trees worldwide according to the call of our head of the community that demands us to plant trees wherever we are. That is why today (Sunday) we have planted these 25 acacia seedlings,” said Mr Vejlani.

Besides that, the community also donated maize flour, sugar, soap and salt to the elderly who are being taken care of at Funganga Destitute Camp which currently accommodates 25 elders.

The Fungafunga local street leader in Kichangani Ward, Ms Asia Bakari, said Morogoro River was being polluted mostly due to human activities, including cultivation along the river, throwing of wastes and sand mining.

“We’ve managed to prevent sand mining alone but other activities are still going on,” she said.