WATCH: Kenya's president saves century-old Nairobi fig tree from being felled for new highway

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Nairobi - Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta has issued a decree to save a much-loved century-old fig tree from being cut down to make way for a Chinese-funded highway in the capital Nairobi.

The presidential decree described the tree, the height of a four-storey building, as a "beacon of Kenya's cultural and ecological heritage."

The fig tree is considered sacred among Kenya's most populous ethnic group, the Kikuyu.

Environmentalists had been campaigning against the planned destruction of the tree, which stands on Waiyaki Way in the west of the city, where engineers are building the expressway above the existing road on pillars.

"It is now a presidential declaration that this tree will be conserved," Mohammed Badi, director general of Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS), told a news conference next to the tree.