Nairobi: Meru County, currently ranked third in Kenya in tree cover, has emerged as a leading champion of the Model Village approach, touted to be the game-changer for Kenya's green future.
According to Kenya News Agency, Mr. Lawrence Muthamia, an economist at the Forestry Department and the focal person for realizing 15 billion trees by 2032, stated that strategic partnerships, citizen engagement, and strong institutional leadership position Meru to potentially become the best county nationwide in tree cover.
Mr. Muthamia emphasized the importance of Meru inspiring other counties to adopt the Model Village vision to collectively create a greener, safer, and more prosperous Kenya by 2032. He highlighted that more than 30 schools have established fruit tree nurseries, which have not only greened their learning spaces but also empowered students to be custodians of Kenya's environmental future.
Additional ongoing efforts in Meru County include the establishment of community woodlots, capacity-building for youth and women groups, and the development of green innovation hubs. These initiatives serve as demonstration centers for sustainable agroforestry and climate-smart livelihoods.
Mr. Muthamia called on all counties, civil society organizations, development partners, and the private sector to support this framework. He noted that the Model Village Framework aligns with Kenya Vision 2030, the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA), the National Landscape and Ecosystem Restoration Strategy, the Kenya Forest Policy 2023, and international commitments such as the AFR100, Bonn Challenge, and the SDGs.
Youth and women-led groups in Meru are actively establishing community woodlots, supported by technical guidance and input supply chains from the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and development partners. These efforts are backed by a robust Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) system to ensure transparency, survival tracking, and long-term impact measurement.
The Government continues to advance its transformative environmental agenda by institutionalizing the Model Village Framework-an inclusive, locally anchored approach to tree growing, climate resilience, and sustainable development. Mr. Muthamia affirmed that the framework is pivotal for the Government's agenda on environmental restoration, forestry development, and climate action, including the ambitious 15 billion Tree Growing Campaign aimed at achieving 30 percent national tree cover by 2032.
The framework integrates communities, schools, public institutions, and faith-based organizations into localized tree-growing ecosystems, promoting climate-smart livelihoods, youth empowerment through green education, sustainable forest value chains, food and nutrition security, and carbon markets and ecosystem services.