Cabinet Secretary Inducted into Rotary
Hon. Keriako Tobiko, the Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, is the latest Rotarian in town. The District Governor, Engineer Patrick Obath, inducted Hon. Tobiko as an honorary Rotarian of the Rotary Club of Ngong Hills in a colorful ceremony during an online Mega Joint Fellowship on September 17th, 2020.
‘I’m humbled and privileged to join Rotary. I had assumed that Rotary had to do with money making gambling business. I recently learnt that it is a club of decent, honorable, dignified men and women who offer themselves for service of humanity voluntarily’, said Hon. Tobiko.
In his acceptance remarks the Cabinet Secretary said that Rotary’s motto of service above self and the 4-Way Test inspired him.
‘I have also listened to the recitation of the 4-way test and I am fully in agreement and associate myself with it and once again offer myself to abide by those tests,’ said Hon Tobiko.
The Rotary Club of Ngong Hills in collaboration with the District Office organized the mega joint fellowship to highlight the importance of Rotary’s newest area of focus, the environment. Dubbed ‘my environment my life’ the mega fellowship brought together 43 Rotary clubs and attracted 240 Rotarians across the District with the Cabinet Secretary as the Chief Guest.
Hon. Tobiko observed that the environment is important. It forms the foundation of the country’s big 4 Agenda and ‘each of the 6 Rotary pillars relate and impact very directly to the environment.’
He attributed the frequent droughts, unpredictable weather, extreme heatwaves, proliferation of zoonotic diseases such as the SARs to environmental destruction and encroachment on animal biodiversity. He noted that this destruction hasn’t spared key forests and water towers in the country.
‘Ngong Hills Forest is a critical asset that is threatened by human beings through greed, corruption, encroachment, poaching of trees and soil erosion. It is the source of Kiserian and Mbagathi rivers. It had 157 streams but less than 10 streams are left that have been reduced to a trickle. The different species of flora and fauna has disappeared or shrunk and are constantly threatened by human action,’ said Hon Tobiko.
He cautioned against ‘haphazard and uncoordinated efforts by different entities at planting trees rather than growing trees’ on these critical water towers. He reiterated that environment protection is everybody’s responsibility if we are to safeguard the life of generations yet to be born.
‘There’s a need to change our mind-set, attitudes and behaviours. Environment protection starts with you. Start with the mess within your domestic confines. We have a responsibility to be a role model for our children.’
As part of this individual responsibility to conserve the environment, the Cabinet Secretary donated Kshs 30,500 towards the “Save Ngong Hills Forest” mega tree planting activity on the Ngong Hills Forest on Saturday, October 24, 2020. He further agreed to preside over the event. The “Save Ngong Hills Forest” tree planting activity is an initiative of the Rotary Club of Ngong Hills in partnership with the Rotary Clubs of Karen, Kikuyu, Kiserian, Ongata Rongai, Ongata Rongai East and Karengata.
President John Mwangi of Rotary Club of Ngong Hills says the mega tree planting activity will support the restoration of the Ngong Hills Forest as a water Tower.
