Our forests are home to critical wildlife habitat. When our forests are threatened, it also threatens the homes of all the diverse wildlife habitat that live there. Natural disasters, urbanization, and agriculture are just a few of the common causes of deforestation. But as deforestation continues to rise, the animals that call it home start to disappear.
We all know about climate change. We’ve been told about greenhouse gasses, we’ve seen the dramatic images of ice shelves collapsing into the ocean, and yes, maybe the weather in our area has been a bit more severe lately. For the majority of us, this is how we see climate change: news reports, videos from the arctic, and the occasional inconvenience.
What we don’t see is the impoverished farmer struggling to provide for his family. What we don’t see is his fight against drastically fluctuating markets, against degrading seed quality, and against even mother nature herself when the rains come less frequently, at ever-changing times, or sometimes, not at all. For all these reasons, we at Amara have been donating seedlings as well as planting with school kids in various schools in Taita – Taveta County to sensitize people about the benefits of planting trees and engage them in doing so. So, the benefits of planting trees are enormous however we still overlook their importance. It is time we realize how important these are for our environment as well as our social and economic well-being. Each one of us must take it as a responsibility to plant trees whenever and wherever we can to make our planet a better place to live.
It is a long process to re-imagine our values to be more in tune with nature. It may be generations before we start to see a nature based world view woven into all of our human decisions – but what a vision to hold on to! It is the cultivation of this both new and ancient connection to nature, the rewilding of human culture that will ultimately lead to the return of our wild places.
As a Chinese proverb states, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.” So, do your bit and make this place more beautiful