By Mwai Mkwapatira, MANA
The country has planted over 50 million trees in the just ended tree planting season against a 60 million target.
Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining has since expressed satisfaction over the number of planted trees covering about 25, 000 hectares.
“The ministry is satisfied with the way how Malawians have taken part in this tree planting season that ended on April 15.
“Our target was to plant 60 million trees as stated by President Peter Mutharika when he launched the 2018/19 tree planting season.
“We are not far away from the target and we hope that the number will increase as we finish correcting data,” said the ministry’s spokesperson Sangwani Phiri in an interview Friday.
He further said government will do an assessment through district forest offices in areas affected by floods to find out if there is need to replant trees.
“The assessment will be done to measure the magnitude of affected trees,” Phiri said.
Mutharika launched the planting season in December 2018 at Malingunde Primary School Ground in Lilongwe District under the theme ‘Plant and manage trees, secure water, food and environment.’