Governor Orengo Hosts CS Soipan Tuya on Memorable Environment Assessment Tour

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By Calvin Otieno

Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Forestry Soipan Tuya while on her maiden visit to Siaya County in the push for climate action has emphasized that efforts of restoring the ecosystem should go hand in hand with protection especially of water sources that are crucial for survival.

The Financing Locally Lead Climate Change Action Programme (FLLoCA) is funded by The World Bank in partnership with the Commission of Administrative Justice (Office of Ombudsman) is working with selected counties, including Siaya to set up infrastructure that would contribute towards combating climate change.

“In regards to the FLLoCA programme, the Ministry of Environment, National Treasury and the Counties are very critical implementing entities and we therefore have to work together to deliver a very high impact outcome under the programme,” said the CS.

While speaking at the Governor’s office, Tuya noted that out of the 17 hilltops in Siaya, only two have been gazetted and assured that her Ministry was going to initiate the process of gazettement of the remaining 15.

On her Climate Action tour of Siaya, the CS was accompanied by officials from National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), Kenya Forestry Research Institute (KEFRI), Kenya Forest Services among others, and hosted by Siaya Governor James Orengo.

Tuya stated that one of the outcomes of her meeting with Governor Orengo was the identification of a flagship ecosystem, the Yala Delta as a potential earmark together with several hilltops to develop an end-to-end programme of ecosystem restoration.

While noting Siaya’s lowly ranking in forest coverage of 0.23 percent, Governor Orengo assured that through tree planting programmes already in place with partners such as the Ministry of Education that encouraged tree planting in schools, the county was well on its way to improving on its tree coverage statistics.