NAIROBI – Risk advisory company Minne planted 20,000 tree saplings in the Matasia Forest Forest in Kimbu County as part of its ongoing target of planting 500,000 trees in Kenya by 2030.
The new planting brings the company’s total number of trees planted over the past three years to 46,000, with the latest exercises including over 100 local community members. Participants promised to grow the tree to mature.
According to the Kenya Forest Service’s 2024 forest status report, Kenya loses an estimated 84,700 hectares of forest each year, with an additional 14,900 hectares degraded. The report estimates that deforestation is due to activities such as logging, burning charcoal and expanding agriculture, with the resulting damages estimated to exceed Sh 534 billion per year due to loss of carbon storage, reduced agricultural yields and depletion of water resources.
Minet CEO Sammy Muthui said planting is no longer an environmental issue, but a broader development challenge related to food security, energy production and climate resilience.
The initiative supports national targets under Kenya’s forest ecosystem landscape restoration strategy, planting 15 billion trees and seeking to restore more than 10 million hectares of degraded land by 2032.
Minet had planned to plant more trees in 2024, but efforts were stopped following the intended site landslide. The programme resumed in 2025 after permission from the forest authorities.
The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics 2025 Economic Survey shows that the area under the new tree doubled from 2,400 hectares in 2023 last year to 4,900 hectares.
Minne says that once mature, the trees planted this year can support around 10,000 people and produce enough oxygen to absorb more than 440,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide per year.
