African nations vow to restore forests
JOHANNESBURG — Tree by tree, more than a dozen African governments pledged to restore the continent’s natural forests at the United Nations climate talks today.
The Earth has lost more than half its forests over the course of human history, according to the World Resources Institute. The deforestation of the world’s tropical forests has contributed to climate change by producing up to 15 per cent of global carbon emissions, the organization said.
The AFR100 initiative is a pledge by African nations to restore 100 million hectares of forest by 2030, according to the organization.
“As the world forges a climate agreement in Paris, African countries — which bear the least historic responsibility for climate change — are showing leadership with ambitious pledges to restore land,” said Andrew Steer, president and CEO of the World Resources Institute.
Wanjira Mathai, daughter of the late Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, described the AFR100 forest restoration project as unprecedented.
“I have seen restoration in communities both large and small across Africa, but the promise of a continent-wide movement is truly inspiring,” said Mathai, chairwoman of the Green Belt Movement founded by her mother. “Restoring landscapes will empower and enrich rural communities while providing downstream benefits to those in cities. Everybody wins. ”
During the Global Landscapes Forum at the UN climate talks, the World Bank, the German government and other partners set aside more than $1 billion US in development funding and $540 million in private funding for African reforestation.
More than a dozen African countries, including Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda, have pledged millions of acres to the project. West African nations along the Sahara desert have also pledged to plant more trees to stop the ever encroaching desert from destroying more arable land.
“Restoration is not just an environmental strategy, it is an economic and social development strategy as well,” said Bright Msaka, minister of environment and sustainable development in Niger, which has committed 3.2 million hectares to the project.
Among the pledging countries is Madagascar. The island’s forests are home to some of the world’s most unique plants and animals, all under threat from deforestation. To astronauts observing from space, Madagascar seems like an island bleeding into the ocean as its rich red soil, eroded by decades of unregulated logging, runs into the water, leaving behind cratered land unfit for farming, according to the foundation.
Some of the countries that are home to the Congo Basin, which conservationists call the Earth’s second set of lungs, after the Amazon Basin, have also signed up to the project. The Democratic Republic of Congo has pledged eight million hectares to the restoration project.
These pledges may face challenges from the global timber industry, exacerbated by illegal logging, which is the biggest cause of deforestation, according to Greenpeace. The World Research Institute is working on a monitoring project that includes satellite and ground-level observation.