The exercise took place in Donga Mantung, Bui and Momo Divisions of the North West.
“One woman, One tree” is the subject of the campaign that took the Speaker of the National Assembly, Rt. Hon. Cavaye Yeguie Djibril to the North West from September 12-14, 2012 to launch the planting of some 1,900 trees as a way of fighting against climate change. It was the third stage of the first phase of the tree-planting campaign in application of the partnership agreement between the Pan African Parliamentary Network against Climate Change, (REPRACC) and the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and the Family (MINPROFF). The campaign took the Speaker to Nkambe in Donga Mantung Division, Kumbo in Bui and Batibo in Momo Division with activities summed up in conventions with local stakeholders to enhance the regeneration of forests, effective tree-planting and messages that inspire the crusade against climate change.
The ugliness of climate change was the take home message with the team taking off a minute of silence at every stop in honour of victims of killer floods that are currently rocking the North and Far North Regions of Cameroon. It was against this backdrop that the House Speaker urged the population to join women in the preservation of the environment for posterity by ensuring that trees are effectively planted to protect water catchment areas and sustain the soils for agriculture. The message was e-echoed by the Executive President of REPRACC, Cameroonian- born, Hon Cyprian Awudu Mbaya who said “Climate change is here with us” and went ahead to hail the National Assembly Speaker for reaching out to the field to plant trees against the evil.
The Inspector No. 1 in the Ministry of Women Empowerment and the Family, Nkamchor Emilia explained the raison d’etre of the woman at the centre of the campaign, backed by the fact that climate change threatens the woman most in her endeavours to fetch food and the need for fertile soils to feed mankind. She said the woman is the mother of life and could not idle while climate change threatens and kills. Nkamchor Emilia said the Ministry of Women Empowerment and the Family is out to inform, educate and encourage women to stand by the campaign to regenerate forests for sustainability. It also emerged from the campaign that 1,100 trees will be planted in Nkambe, Donga Mantung, 400 in Kumbo, Bui Division and 400 in Batibo, Momo Division. It was also a are moment for respective populations to show hospitality to Hon. Cavaye Yeguie Djibril with gifts and requests for the government to improve their living standards with electricity and good road infrastructure.
