While Vision 2030 had foreseen Kenya realizing 10% tree cover by 2030, a presidential directive brought the target forward to 2022. Through collaboration among stakeholders the forest sector, the target was surpassed in June 2022.
Following this success, the Kenya government in collaboration with stakeholders revised the tree cover goal to 30% by 2050. This development presents great opportunity for the youth to participate in sustainable forest conservation while improving their economic base, a reality at a time when the youth form the largest segment of the Kenyan population and face the worst challenge of unemployment.
By And Large, This Disconnect Can Be Attributed To:
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- Forestry sector working in isolation
- Lack of access to adequate skills, knowledge & information on tree growing & value chains
- Poor socio-cultural orientation towards forestry technologies &innovation
- Limited access to land, lack of capital and intermittent financial support.
- Poor culture of entrepreneurship amongst the youth
It is against this backdrop that we are organizing the Kenya Youth in Forestry Conference (KYFC), to be held on the 15th , 16th & 17th March 2023, followed by a tree planting campaign at Karura Forest and will run under the theme: Securing youths participation to achieve the 30% tree agenda for sustainable development.
The conference will bring together youth from the 47 counties to learn from the government, non-governmental organizations, development partners, themselves and key forestry sector stakeholders on how to balance their desire for forest conservation while engaging in commercial forestry as entrepreneurs..