A symbolic hand-over on National Tree Day
Under the overcast sky of 6 November 2025, the esplanade of Pointe-Noire’s city hall became the stage for a gesture rich in symbolism: Éric Delattre, Managing Director of TotalEnergies EP Congo, presented nearly 300 young trees to the municipality during the 39th National Tree Day. Created in 1984 to encourage the fight against deforestation and climate change, the annual celebration has matured into a civic ritual that unites local authorities, corporate actors and residents around the same green horizon.
Prefect Pierre Cébert Iboko Onanga formally received the donation before passing it on to Mayor Evelyne Tchitchelle Moe Poaty. Military, civil and municipal dignitaries looked on as the first saplings sank into the coastal sand, confirming that climate action can germinate from a single ceremonial shovel.
Corporate climate ambition meets local stewardship
For TotalEnergies EP Congo, the initiative is woven into the company’s publicly stated ambition to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. “Every tree planted today represents a tangible pace towards a more sustainable future,” Delattre observed, recalling that the energy major’s environmental roadmap depends on disciplined partnerships with host communities.
That partnership found concrete expression in Pointe-Noire, where the prefecture designated two planting sites capable of hosting 174 specimens. Fifty coconut palms—robust members of the Arecaceae family—will punctuate the city’s wild coastline, while 124 Terminalia mantaly, a fast-growing Combretaceae species, will provide shade and carbon sequestration along a seven-metre grid. A second, half-hectare plot at CEG Ngoyo A is set to welcome an additional fifty Terminalia, extending the green corridor toward the city’s educational precinct.
Species choice and silvicultural strategy
The selected mix is anything but ornamental. Coconut palms reinforce the shoreline, binding sandy soils that suffer abrasion from Atlantic winds, whereas Terminalia mantaly’s broad canopy moderates urban heat and attracts avian biodiversity. Foresters from the Departmental Directorate, led by Paul Galoy, emphasised that proper spacing—roughly seven metres—will optimise photosynthetic spread and lower disease pressure, giving seedlings the best chance of reaching maturity during the current United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
“One employee, one tree”: engaging the workforce
Beyond the municipal gift, TotalEnergies EP Congo extended the celebration inward, purchasing 1,700 additional fruit and vegetable plants from the Société Nationale de Reboisement so that each employee could transplant a living symbol of corporate citizenship at home. The distribution, conducted across the Poincaré, Kilomètre 4, Base Industrielle and Djeno sites, unfolded under the watchful coordination of HSSE Division Chief Irène Kimpo.
“Climate resilience begins in our own backyards,” Kimpo reminded colleagues, inviting them to nurture their saplings until the first harvest rewards patience with tangible produce. Employees welcomed the gesture as a concrete reply to the abstract spectre of global warming, confident that collective micro-actions can accumulate into meaningful mitigation.
Convergence with national vision
Prefect Iboko Onanga seized the moment to echo the environmental priorities articulated by President Denis Sassou Nguesso, insisting that local vigilance over the young plantations will determine whether the promising ceremony ripens into lasting canopy. His exhortation mirrored Galoy’s reminder of the Republic’s alignment with the United Nations Decade for Afforestation and Reforestation, a framework that elevates each commune’s responsibility to cultivate carbon sinks.
In the verdant aftermath of the ceremony, Pointe-Noire’s coastal breeze carried more than salted air; it carried a quiet conviction that public authority, private enterprise and individual citizens can jointly steer the nation toward a florid, low-carbon horizon—one newly planted tree at a time.