An appreciation of the natural environment and consciousness of climate change led Behave Shoko Chasara into action. Chasara is climate activist who hails from Gokwe and began cycling around Zimbabwe to plant trees in every province and raise consciousness in communities of our role in taking care of our environment. We caught up with the busy man to chat about the inspiration behind his work and what led him to this work.

When we finally had time to do our interview, he had just pitched his tent in a remote area in Zimbabwe, was fatigued and has connectivity issues. Will power is what led to the success of our interview. _{*KM – Kudzai Mhangwa, BC – Behave Chasara}

KM: Thank you for sitting down with us Behave. Please introduce yourself. 

BC: Hie there, my name is Behave Shoko from Gokwe, Midlands province in Zimbabwe and I’m a climate change activist. 

KM: You are cycling around the whole country planting trees. When did you start doing that?

BC: Yes that’s right. I’m cycling around all ten provinces just to plant a tree. The project is called ‘Project One Tree’. My journey started at Mutange Primary School in Gokwe where I attained my primary level education on the 10^th of April then I planted another tree in Mashonaland West at a restaurant named ‘Kwa Terry’ and the third tree was planted at Capitalk FM radio station in Harare then I planted my fourth tree at the Ezekiel Guti prayer mountain in Bindura. Right now I’m in Marondera and planning of planting the next tree. I have always been active as a climate change activist in my community assisting in any way that I can so I strated to step out into other provinces to see if they have been as affected as my community by drought. I am aiming to plant trees in areas of great influence. 

KM: What is the inspiration behind your work?

BC: The inspiration behind my work is that I want to inspire someone by work to take care of our environment and take care of our trees and also appreciate the forests that we have. Wherever I plant trees I try to educate people how important trees and our environment are so we should take care of it. This is why I am targeting places that are influential in the communities I visit like universities, churches and schools.

KM: How many places have you gone to so far and planted trees?

BC: So far I’m in province number five (Mashonaland East). I’ve covered four provinces so far which are Midlands, Harare, Mashonaland West and Mashonaland Central. 

KM: I’ve heard that response to your work has not always been positive. How has the negativity shown itself during your work?

BC: Yes, there’s some negativity but people still need to be taught and preach the gospel of climate change or how affected we have become by it, how to control it. Some have questioned me who is paying me to do this and what is the benefit of my work. I have to ignore their comments and try to educate them how important it is to take care of our environment, our water, our land and trees. 

KM: Do you believe that people have a full appreciation of environmental conservation and our part in protecting our environment? 

BC: I do believe the older generations are more appreciative than the younger generations. They don’t see the value of the environment and they don’t see its value though we are going to suffer the most from climate change. From the research I did I found that the older generation has been more receptive to my work.

KM: What would your greatest achievement look life?

BC: I want everybody about this, this guy is cycling more than three thousand kilometers to plant a tree so I can encourage someone to also plant a tree or take care of the tree they have already. Today I was in Murehwa and I met tobacco farmers, I tried to speak to the younger generation of farmers and speak to them on the destruction they cause by cutting trees and tried to encourage them to replant the trees they had cut down. They made a promise to me to replace some trees. 

KM: Thank you very much for agreeing to the interview. What are your final words for readers? 

BC: Some of the research I’ve done says that only Midlands, especially Gokwe has been affected by the draught and climate change. My question now is, how long will it take for other regions to be affected? If region 1 was doing better two decades ago, change will come to other regions. Other regions such as Goromonzi are doing well and wildlife still thrives there but in places like Gokwe it is gone. The other regions that are still well, we must protect those regions.

Chasara documents his work on his Facebook (Facebook) page and is open to any form of support, collaboration or sponsorship.