By Sarah Mlozoa

Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy (CEPA) has applauded the government for including the youth in the 2019/2020 national tree planting season activities.

According to the Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining, the youth are expected to manage 30,000 hectares of natural regeneration of customary land throughout the country.

Executive Director for CEPA, William Chadza told YFM that the initiative will address low survival rate of seedlings which the country has had in the previous seasons.

“I think it’s a progressive development because previous efforts in planting new seedlings have not been successful as survival rate was only at 30 percent,” he said.

“So the move towards natural regeneration is much more potential because it has shown that this builds forest faster than new seedlings.”

The 2019/2020 national tree planting season commenced on December 15 and will run up to April 15, 2020.

The 2019/2020 national tree planting season targets 62 million trees.