African Countries Launch Programme to Reforest

PARIS – During the climate summit COP21 last week, 10 African countries announced their commitment to a plan to reforest huge tracts of the continent over the next 15 years.

The announcement was made during the Global Landscapes Forum at the Conference of Parties (COP21).

AFR100, the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, is a pan-African, country-led effort to restore 100 million hectares (386,000 square miles) of degraded and deforested landscapes by 2030, the World Resources Institute said in a statement on the weekend.

“Restoring our landscapes brings prosperity, security and opportunity,” said Vincent Biruta, Minister of Natural Resources in Rwanda. “With forest landscape restoration we’ve seen agricultural yields rise and farmers in our rural communities diversify their livelihoods and improve their well-being. Forest landscape restoration is not just an environmental strategy, it is an economic and social development strategy as well.”

So far 10 African countries have agreed to join AFR100 and committed at least 31.7 million hectares of land for forest landscape restoration. AFR100 partners are earmarking more than $1 billion in development finance from the World Bank and more than $540 million in private sector impact investment to support restoration activities.

The 10 countries that have joined so far are Democratic Republic of Congo (8 million hectares), Ethiopia (15 million), Niger (3.2 million), Rwanda (2 million), Uganda (2.5 million) and Liberia (1 million), as well as Togo, Kenya, Madagascar and Malawi (finalizing hectare target).