Government’s one million tree-planting project is being hampered by a lack of irrigation by delinquent planters who are failing to properly maintain the trees.
Coordinator of the National Tree Planting programme Dewyn Phillips made this disclosure following an award ceremony at Walkers Institute for Regeneration Research Education and Design Inc. in Walkers, St Andrew on Monday.
Phillips said they were concerned about the high mortality rate in some communities. The main issue with the upkeep of the trees has been irrigation.
Phillips declined to identify the communities where the problem existed.
“You would recognise in certain areas you will see some trees drying . . . We’ve encountered two communities that requested trees early this year and I’m afraid to say there is a very high mortality rate.”
Philips said it was disappointing when this occurred as the Government was heavily subsidising the initiative so various community groups could get access to fruit trees from the Soil Conservation Unit without straining their pockets.
“We are there to sensitise, we are there to raise awareness that you need to upkeep the trees. We can only do so much. We have donated them but the community has not kept them up at all and you are seeing some of these sites being afflicted like that.
“We always ask them to please water your trees, a regime of at least twice a week minimum. They start off well and then sometimes a guy says ‘well only me doing it and my water bill can’t do [any longer]’ and then from there the trees suffer.
“But unless communities are going to provide irrigation in the dry season, we will not be donating to those persons.”
Phillips explained that the ministry had devised a strategy to deal with the issue going forward.
“What we primarily will be doing into next year [is] we have a National Sports Council partnership and they have groundsmen that assist, we will use the groundsmen to help water these trees, only in the dry season. So we will not be donating to persons we know will be having challenges.”
He added that a committee would also have to be formed and the members would have to indicate how they were going to look after the trees.
“We normally ask a community to have a committee, even if it’s made up. If I have six persons who are interested in that committee to plant and water, then we will do that, but one or two persons in the community is a no.”
Dendrologist Nigel Jones added that the ministry would also be implementing a monitoring system to check on the project in various communities.
He said it was the ministry’s aim to ensure the project had a 90 to 95 per cent survival rate.
Despite this issue, however, Phillips said the success rate of the national programme was above average as the survival rate was just over 60 per cent.
He pointed to a community in Kingsland Christ Church that created a green zone.
Phillips added that the ministry usually gave away the trees during the rainy season when it was most likely that they would strive, noting that trees were only donated if they were being planted on Government property.
Some of the fruit trees donated include soursop, pomegranate, sugar apple, dunks, ackee and other fruit trees indigenous to the Caribbean region and a few exotic trees such as the Suriname cherry.
During the dry season, drought-tolerant trees such as guava, coconut, cashew and cherry trees would be donated.
So far, 420 000 trees have been planted as part of the one million trees initiative.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley launched the programme in December 2019 at the Daryll Jordan Secondary School in St Lucy. (SZB)
