There is a need to conserve forests and plant more to respond to the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases from deforestation and forest degradation which cause climate change worldwide, experts have said.

This came up in a three-day workshop organised by the Ministry of Natural Resources in collaboration with Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) that is underway in Musanze District.

The workshop brought together academics, experts in climate change, civil society representatives among others and it was agreed that everyone had a role to play to make sure climate change is mitigated.

Adria Mukashema, the deputy director-general in charge of forestry and natural conservation at the Rwanda Natural Resources Authority, said climate change is a cross-cutting issue and there is a need to conserve the forests and improve the stocks of carbon forestry in developing countries.

She said the workshop will help experts develop a roadmap on how climate change should be addressed.

"Experts in this meeting should help us develop the roadmap on how to put efforts together in conserving our forests; we know forest degradation and deforestation are a crosscutting issues, forests help accumulate carbon gasses, give us oxygen and we get rain thanks to them,” Mukashema said.

Restoring forest cover

She said despite the significant reduction of forest cover that had declined by 64 per cent, between 1960 and 2007, Rwanda is proactively increasing forest cover now at 28.3 per cent of the total surface area, and  is very much on course to achieving the 30 per cent targeted cover by 2017.

"After the forests are restored to our desired coverage, we need to now look at how every Rwandan can own them and conserve them so that we do not go back to where we are coming from,” she said.

According to Laurent Gashugi, the FAO deputy country representative, the workshop will be helpful as those trained will interact with their peers about climate change thus take measures to avoid dangers caused by the emissions.