KIGALI - The Minister of Forestry and Mines, Christophe Bazivamo, yesterday told the Senate that the government is planning to plant over 44 million trees by the end of 2011 as part of national efforts to boost forestry.

He made the remarks while responding to the Senators’ queries regarding the current status of forests in the country.

"Our aim is to have 30 percent of the country’s surface covered with forests by 2013. Currently forest cover is at 23 percent,” Bazivamo said.

"We had planned to plant 129,690,000 trees but we managed to plant 116, 721,036 which constitute (90%) of our initial projection”.

He, however, added that not all trees that were planted matured, adding that only 60.3% of them grew.

He also pointed out that the Western Province leads in having the biggest forest coverage with 42% of the country’s forest coverage planted on 232,301 hectares.
The Southern Province has 36% followed by Eastern Province with 82,965 hectares (15%).

The Northern Province and Kigali City have the least percentage of forest coverage with 27,655 hectares (5%) and 11,062 hectares (2%) respectively.

Bazivamo also unveiled a government plan of replacing trees that were planted and did not grow as well as old trees and added that the government also intends to introduce a tree planting programme from the village level to the district level.

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