Tree at the Botatic Gardens by the Matooke marathon Runners and Katonda Afaayo Foundation
The Entebbe Botanic Gardens (EBG) regularly engages communities and school groups in their education and awareness programs and this has drastically reduced human threats. The interest of tree planting in the gardens has increased since the unpredicted devastating massive destruction of the ecosystem faced on 17/2/2022, where about 123 trees from 44 trees of economic benefits beyond transformation where uprooted.
A group of 101 marathon runners from the Matooke Marathon Runners toured the Uganda National Genebank located in EBG, and after appreciating the broad mission of the Plant Genetic Resources Centre, they further organized and planted over 190 fruit tree species (Guava, Java plum, Canarium, mangoes etc) donated by the Katonda Afaayo Foundation in EBG on Sunday, 11th Feb 2024. The theme was “Let us plant trees and save the earth for the future”. The occasion involved runners from different age groups, gender and nationalities. The runners promised to carry on the initiative annually depending on the available resources. The planted trees will be monitored by the management of EBG, well labelled acknowledging both the Matooke Marathon Runners and the Katonda Afaayo Foundation for their determination.
In the same month, Joyce Adokorach, an Ethnobotanist at PGRC urged staff to always plant a tree on their birthdays besides cake cutting. On 28th February, 2024, she planted five trees around the office premises including a Garcinia buchananii indigenous fruit tree species, locally known as Nsaali (Luganda) or Amashalalazi (Lukiga) conserved for medicinal use. Let us imitate Joyce’s noble idea to secure trees and create a positive impact on our environment.
