Tunis: The vegetation and forest cover in the locality of Kesra, Siliana governorate, known for its carob trees, is the subject of several reforestation campaigns.
The latest campaign targeted 330 hectares of forest in the Aliliga locality, which was the scene of a fire in 2018 that destroyed more than 600 hectares of Aleppo pine forest.
As part of the reforestation campaign, public works companies planted 200 hectares of carob trees in the forest. In addition, 130 hectares of various forest tree species were planted under agreements with Tunisian civil society associations (Soli and Green and others), including argan, eucalyptus and Berber cedar, also known as Atlas cypress, a species endemic to North Africa, as well as Makthar cypress, also an endemic species.
“Despite the climatic conditions, the results are generally satisfactory and the success rate of the plantations is encouraging. The trees planted are in good health,” says Abdelhamid Smeti of the Siliana Forestry Department.
According to Smeti, t
he novelty of this reforestation campaign is the introduction of jujube cultivation, a species whose value is still little appreciated by botanical science and little known to the general public in Tunisia.
These fruit species are exceptional examples of multipurpose perennial plants with great potential in the agricultural systems of the country’s arid, semi-arid and even desert zones,” according to the book “Les jujubiers en Tunisie”: Des rhamnacées aux valeurs ignorées” by Abdelwahed Laamouri, a Tunisian doctor of agronomy.
The reforestation campaign in the Kesra forest is being organised as part of the 141st anniversary of the creation of the Directorate-General of Forests (DGF).
Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse