Our Tree Planting Project in Tanzania Today

We are a team of 5 tree nursery establishment instructors assigned to carry out certain environmental activities in this project quarter. The assigned tasks were to start at our home base tree nursery then to four primary school nurseries funded by the ForestNation, 4H million trees, African rainforest conservancy and the Friends of Usambara. At these sites we were to sow different tree seeds – basically some Albizia Pine, Makhamea, Eucalyptus, Griveria and fruit trees including avocado, peas, plum, and apple.We are also to take care of the seedlings before they are transplanted to different places in demand.

We managed to hit the target by producing 523,672 tree seedlings which are now in tubes in all the five tree nurseries. In these schools, the 4H clubs are fully involved in all activities starting from nurseries preparation to transplantation. The major aim for this kind of participation is for the school kids to practice all basic skills they acquired in classroom sessions we conducted regarding tree nursery establishment.

The four Primary schools with these tree nurseries are Kitopeni, Mhelo, Kwesimu and Kwembago.In this quarter twenty more schools including Mbula “A”, Mbula “B” and Kweshindo desire the same thing into their place. If we then succeed in this the knowledge on tree raising, nursery management and maintenances will be imputed to these new schools and multiply
the impact.In some of the new schools we will keep supplying the seeds for the students to sustain their original tree nurseries.

In a few months to come the seedlings will be transplanted to Mkuzu river valley (at least 60,000 tree seedlings), Jegastal watershed (35,000 tree seedlings) and other patches adjacent to Magamba nature reserve.We will also provide 150,000 tree seedlings to the district forest department as requested. This will be planted along public roads connecting the villages and Lushoto town to reduce road bank erosion. However a new Secondary school named Lukozi will be given tree seedlings amounted to 100,000 to be planted at school compound. The remaining tree seedlings are to be planted in host school compounds and villages clustering these schools.This is an amazing work because we expect to have a good hand from the villagers as they promised. We will also work with the villagers of Maguzoni and Yoghoi who are really impressed with our efforts. Many of them came off their houses with hoes and spades just to assist when we implemented a similar project two years ago, a good thing with this operation was the fact that none of them dared to ask for something in return understanding that the trees were meant for them and their future.

It is obvious that this justifies how successfully community awareness has improved as compared to the previous years. We are really proud of what knowledge our people have acquired from this important mountain campaign.With such a step the government has acknowledged our effort by awarding us a certificate of appreciation in regard to our effort in environment conservation. Much impressive is also the government recognition of the schools we are working with by awarding them certificates of honor for such efforts in retaining nature, protecting the environment and raising awareness among people.This would never be possible if it was not our good cooperation with the ForestNation, 4H million trees and African rainforest conservancy we hope to keep on working together to bring about more and more changes to the Mountains’ nature.