Forest Landscape Restoration Hub for the Eastern and Southern Africa countries was, yesterday, inaugurated in Rwanda during the celebration of International Forests Day.

The centre will be providing high level technical support, financial packages, investments and incentives, and technical data access to restoration programmes in the region covering more than 24 countries, according to Charles Karangwa, the regional hub coordinator.

"We have to come up with mechanisms to gather resources in terms of financing restoration projects together with technical capacity,” he said.

The hub was initiated in partnership with International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that conducted the first opportunity assessment and mapping study to identify priority landscapes to be restored.

It is expected to increase linkage between public and private sector and coordination of stakeholders for learning exchanges like nursing network, building capacity of tree seed centres ,among others.

Jesca Eriyo, the deputy Secretary General of East African Community, said the launch of the new hub is in line with Bonn Challenge, which is the largest world initiative on forest landscape restoration launched in Germany in 2011- under which government, civil societies and private sector target to restore 150 million hectares by 2020 and 350m hectares by 2030.

This target by 2020 could alone bring net benefits to national economies to an estimated $85 billion per year, while, by 2030, benefits could rise to $5.5 trillion and would reduce carbon emissions by 11 per cent to 17 per cent as part of Reducing Emissions from Degraded Land and Forests (REDD) programme.

"Annually over 55,000 million of hectares are degraded in the region. And this is affecting ecosystems, biodiversity and tourism. We have to build the capacity of the centre to deal with such issues. Restoration needs resources and we have to educate community, give them other alternatives,” Eriyo said.

So far, under Bonn Challenge initiative, since 2011 about 70m hectares worldwide have been committed, including Rwandan commitments and a half of it is under development.

Rwanda committed to restore two million hectares of land and forests by 2020, Burundi also committed to restore two million hectares, Uganda with 2.5 m hectares, Tanzania pledged to restore five million hectares while Kenya is still finalising their commitments.

According to Emmanuel Nkurunziza, director general of Rwanda Natural Resources Authority, the new hub has already availed five million Euros for a project of restoration in Gatsibo and Nyagatare districts of Eastern Province.

The project has also been benefiting from particular government budget due to its high land and forest degradation. Other restoration efforts are to be put in watershed protection that also uses soil erosion control using forestation.

Nkurunziza added that Rwandan forests, especially eucalyptus, is also currently threatened by insects. He said research is currently being carried out to find solutions while more other species, including agro forestry, need to be planted to reduce the dominance of non–resistant eucalyptus.

High Wood fuel usage can derail efforts

All restoration efforts would be in vain if population, at over 80 percent in the region, is relying on wood for fuel which needs other energy alternatives.

"The hub must look at both restoration and saving alternatives like modern stoves or renewable energy sources,” Nkurunziza added.

EICV4 indicates that 98 per cent of Rwandans still use wood fuel but could harm current forest coverage of 29.6 per cent derailing the 30 per cent nationwide forest cover target by 2018, the reason why there is need to reduce wood fuel to 50 per cent.

The forests day theme is ‘Forests are key to the planet’s supply of fresh water, which is essential for life’.

Stressing the link between forests and water management, Dr Vincent Biruta, the Minister for Natural Resources, said forests are also key instruments to restoring national water that flows to other areas surrounding the country.

"40 tonnes of our soils are lost annually flowing through our rivers due to erosion. We need to share, as a region, knowledge and experiences in dealing with this problem,” he said.

Experts have called upon private sector to engage in the restoration and saving initiatives by also delivering affordable alternative products to citizens.

One third of world’s largest cities obtain drinking water directly from forested protected areas.

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