Rwanda conservation news – NGO’s involved in re-afforestation

RE-FORESTATION CONTINUES IN RWANDA

The Rwanda Afforestation Support Programme earlier in the week released data of their accomplishments, having planted over 160 hectares of land along main roads with trees while planting over 460 hectares on previously degraded and encroached forest land. The group, with funding from Belgium and the Netherlands will continue their work, now eyeing a further 500 hectares with the overall objective being 2.000 hectares to be replanted with valuable tropical trees. Improved forestry management too is part of the project’s aims and will expand over 10.000 hectares, guiding local communities on best forestry management practices.

This NGO initiative is copied all over Rwanda by other civil society organizations and NGO’s, often with support of development partners, donors and the Rwandan government, which has an expressed policy to increase forest cover by 2020 to 30 percent of the country in order to protect water sources, maintain bio-diversity and protect the local micro climate from radical changes.

This sets Rwanda apart from countries like Uganda, where the powers that be want to give away over 7.000 hectares of intact tropical rainforest to allow a financially ailing Indian owned sugar company grow sugar cane – not long after his own government divested from that very company for constant financial losses over the past decades. Watch this space.