Environmental activists in Kenya have welcomed a presidential declaration to save a 100-year-old fig tree that had been marked for removal to make way for a road project.

Activists have been demonstrating for weeks to oppose the cutting down of trees in the capital to clear the way for the Nairobi Expressway, a 17-mile, four-lane highway which is aimed at reducing traffic.

“Whatever development that is going to happen here will not touch this tree,” said Maj Gen Mohammed Badi, director general of the Nairobi Metropolitan Services, who issued the declaration on behalf of President Uhuru Kenyatta.

It also declared the fig tree “as a beacon of Kenya’s cultural and ecological heritage.”

Source: BBC