By Silvester Mkamaganga, Forester Wildlife Works Carbon – 25th November 2010
TREE SEEDLINGS DISTRIBUTION PROGRAM INTRODUCTION
The seedlings, which have been bought from the community in the project area and nurtured in our green house to the right size to be planted in different degraded sites around to conform with the REDD’s concept.
Objectives
The objective of this activity was to distribute tree seedlings to different sites to be planted as to meet the objective of restoring degraded land and afforestation.
Tree seedlings distribution
Marungu Hill Conservancy approached different schools and community members, selling the idea of tree planting and doing quotations on the amount of tree seedling each sites needs. The strategy Marungu hill use in schools was each student/pupil to be allocated three seedlings of which one seedling was to be planted at home and two to be planted at school under his/her care.
The students were supposed to take care of the tree seedling until they are mature enough to be left. The seedlings, which have been sent to the community, were under their care.
We were able to distribute 15,940 tree seedlings to schools and communities around the carbon project area. When others are off loading seedling, the G.I.S specialist was taking the U.T.M co-ordinate and photos of the site, to show the conditions on the ground assisted by other staffs, for the purpose of monitoring and evaluation the project.
On 9th November, 2010, tree seedlings were distributed to James Mboga, Kale Primary and Westerman’s. In total the tree seedlings were 1,020. But the U.T.M co-ordinates of the planting sites were not taken.
On 20th November, 2010 we distributed seedlings in three places which includes Marungu Secondary School, Itinyi Primary and at the residential place of Mrs. Mercy Joshua. There were 3,100 tree seedlings were distributed. Mr. Joseph Mwanganda assessing Mrs. Mercy Joshua planting site .
The students at Marungu Secondary School were assisting Wildlife Works Carbon tree nursery workers in off loading 1,100 tree seedlings for Marungu Secondary and Itinyi Primary schools.
On 21st November 2010, more indigenous tree seedlings were distributed to the community, which was taken to Mwanangao hill to restore the degraded area: 4,500 tree seedlings were taken to the site.
Gully erosion on the hills is an indicator of forest degradation on the Hill, which has a great impact on the activities done down hill.
On 22nd November, 2010 we distributed seedlings to Kiteghe primary, Kisimenyi primary, Bughuta primary, Mkamenyi and Kale primary. We divided ourselves in to two teams where as on team distributed to kale primary and the other team started from Kiteghe primary coming towards Maungu. We managed to distribute 4,760 tree seedlings
On 23rd November, 2010, we operated as on 22nd November, 2010.One team went to Marungu primary and the team supplied seedlings to Mbele primary, Miasenyi and Misharini primary. On that day we managed to distribute a total of 2,760 tree seedlings.
Discussions
The activity went on well, but there were few challenges we faced here and there. We realized that most of the people in the schools have no plans in place for the planting programs; we assisted them to come up with one. Some of the challenges were poor roads, the teacher in charge of the environment had no precise information when were we coming, due to lack of convenient mobile network in place.
Conclusion
We managed to distribute the entire tree seedlings in time before the school closing according to plan, but for future smooth implementation of the same activity we propose that, there should be participatory planning with all the stakeholders so that each party should know its stake.
The summary of tree seedling distributionDatePlace distributedTotal tree seedlings distributed9/11/2010James Mboga5009/11/2010Kale Primary5009/11/2010Westerman2020/11/2010Marungu sec20020/11/2010Itinyi primary90020/11/2010Mercy Joshua res200021/11/2010Mwanangao Hill450022/11/2010Kiteghe Primary50022/11/2010Kisimenyi Primary85022/11/2010Bughuta Primary160022/11/2010Mkamenyi Primary81022/11/2010Kale Primary100023/11/2010Mbele Primary91023/11/2010Miasenyi Primary60023/11/2010Misharini Primary20023/11/2010Marungu Primary850TOTALS15940
