Arusha — THE Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) has joined the fight against global warming through investing heavily in alternative and clean energy, especially biogas, to offset effects of climate change.
Deputy ELCT Secretary General, Mr Bryton Killewa, stated here over the weekend that the church has so far invested over 800m/- to execute the 'green-oriented' programme of installing biogas plants in more than 1,140 homes nationwide through projects that will cover five years.
He was speaking at the family home of Mr and Mrs William Kivuyo in Kivulul village, Enaboishu ward in Arumeru District where the latest biogas plant was fitted to mark the 2015 annual ELCT environment day.
It is reported that Arusha, whose native residents are mostly nomadic Maasai pastoralists, is home to over 12 million livestock, mostly cattle and this makes the region to have 30 per cent of the country's total livestock stable.
Tanzania with about 21.3 million cattle, 15.2 million goats and 6.4 million sheep or about 43 million livestock, is third in Africa after Sudan and Ethiopia in having the highest number of kept animals on the continent.
Waste products from the animals are adequate to produce enough biogas to run many homes around the year. During the occasion, Mr Killewa also distributed 100 Neem tree seedlings to Loruvan Primary School pupils.
The pupils wanted to plant the Neem tree seedlings in nurseries within their school environment because their scent is known to "keep away harmful insects" such as mosquitoes and flies.
ELCT Coordinator for Life and Environment Programme, Ms Patricia Mwaikenda, said the church has also spent 2.4m/- to buy tree seedlings and distribute them to the community in effort to replenish the country with green cover and help to arrest carbon emissions.
"We have bought and distributed 1,681 tree seedlings among them 352 fruit trees and assorted 1,329 others," she said. "We figured that planting trees, in addition to saving the environment can also improve our diet through fruits and health from herbal medicine," said Ms Mwaikenda, reminding that tree-planting was still an important thing even though people take this for granted nowadays.
The ELCT Life and Environment programme is also working to train people in formation of 'kitchen gardens' to supplement domestic diets, proper ways of farming and livestock keeping in respect to the environment, prevention of soil erosion and irrigation.
