The Ministry of Natural Resources will, today, host an international workshop on forest landscape restoration.

According to a press statement from the ministry, the objective of the workshop is to have a nationwide restoration initiative.

"We want to establish a focused framework of action to move forward – both within pilot landscapes and within a national landscape that will generate robust evidence based on policies and programs required for Rwanda’s restoration to take its restoration initiative nationwide by 2015,” says the statement.

At the launch of the International Year of Forests, the government announced a plan to integrate landscape restoration into its national development plans.

The government also said that it will pursue a goal that would result in border-to-border restoration of land soil, forest and water resources for the benefit of the Rwandan population over the next 25 years.

The goal is based on the MoU signed by the government of Rwanda, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the United Nations Forum on Forests.

The statement states that given the ambition behind this target, it is proposed that, over the next four to five years, the government in collaboration with its partners will restore the functionality and biological diversity of five to six landscapes.

"This should be done in a way that supports and improves rural livelihoods, opening up new development means for the people who live there.”

Meanwhile, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) has raised Rwanda’s resource allocation framework by an additional US$6 million (approximately Rwf3.6 billion) to help initiate the Rwanda landscape restoration initiative.

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