Interview with Dr. Sam Kanyamibwa as ARCOS is celebrating 25 years of Collaborative Action for Nature and People

By: Ange de la Victoire DUSABEMUNGU

As the Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS Network) celebrates its 25th anniversary on Friday, 11 December 2020, TOP AFRICA NEWS had an interview with ARCOS Executive Director, Dr. Sam Kanyamibwa who highlighted the organization’s journey over the past 25 years, climate change challenges, the role of ARCOS in helping Rwanda and other countries in the Albertine Rift region and Africa achieve their goals of sustainable development, reducing the impact of climate change and more.

The Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS Network) is a regional conservation organization founded in 1995 with the mission to enhance biodiversity conservation and sustainable management of natural resources in the Albertine Rift region, Africa Great Lakes region and African Mountains through the promotion of collaborative conservation actions for nature and people.

Dr. Kanyamibwa also requested that interested people or organizations wishing to join ARCOS are welcome once committed to environmental protection, biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. In 2012, ARCOS received the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions.

TOP AFRI CANEWS: Dr. Sam, can you tell us a little bit about ARCOS Network and its 25 years Journey up today:

Dr. Sam Kanyamibwa: In fact, ARCOS was established with the registered Office in U.K, now we are in a process to establish the Headquarters of ARCOS here in Kigali as a Rwanda based International Organization.

Our Organization is very much based on collaboration and our motto is collaborative actions for Nature and People and wherever we go and whatever we do, we put high priority to this motto of collaboration with the communities, local Governments, National Governments and different actors we work with.

25 years is quite a long time! But we started as an organization bringing together different stakeholders in the region. We started in 1995 and that time a number of actors in conservation were affected by different conflicts in the region and it was very difficult to travel from one country to another.

So, it was very good to establish a regional organization where information sharing, experience sharing and networking and also building the capacity of actors in the region could provide an opportunity and framework for working together to address conservation issues.

Throughout these 25 years, we have maintained this aspect of networking. We have three pillars in our work: We network and bring together different stakeholders, we empower stakeholders in terms of information sharing, capacity building, advocacy but also, we act on the ground to address issues with the communities who are the champions of the change so that we can support sustainable solutions on the ground.

TOP AFRI CANEWS: In what Programs has ARCOS made an effort, especially in the last 25 years?

Dr. Sam Kanyamibwa : Our programs spread through a spectrum of different activities from high level in terms of Advocacy, policy engagement, supporting the governments in the region and even in the whole continent to promote sustainable development.

For example, we have worked with UNEP, East African Community and African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN) to promote the Mountain agenda in Africa.

We have worked in some countries like in Uganda where we helped to develop the National Mountain Strategy and here in Rwanda, we have participated in a number of National policies and Strategies, we participated actively in the Environment Thematic Working group..

But we also worked at the local level.

ARCOS has right now 32 Community groups in the region and now since next year we are establishing over 900 community groups in Rwanda who are going to be involved in agroforestry, promoting sustainable livelihoods and this is part of the 20 years Project, which is part of Carbon finance.

We also work in research where we have been conducting a number of Projects looking at Mountain Ecosystems and Wetlands. We have organized a number of Forums, and our first Forum as ARCOS was in 1999. You can see that this focus on Networking and bringing stakeholders together started a long ago.

Two years ago, here in Kigali, we organized the Africa Regional Mountain Forum and two years before in 2016, We organized the World Mountain Forum in Uganda.

In addition, we also organized a number of meetings and events, dialogues, like a couple of years ago, we organized a National Dialogue on Environment and development bringing together different actors.

And of course, we have also organized dialogues specific to the Private Sector to look at adaptation to Climate Change, how companies can integrate sustainability of the environment in their operations because Climate change is also affecting their businesses.

TOP AFRI CANEWS: Rwanda has set an ambitious target as included in NDC (nationally-determined GreenHouse Gas reduction target), what is going to be the role of ARCOS in this move?

Dr. Sam Kanyamibwa: Our role will be to promot sustainable actions on the ground. It is about building resilience for the environment. This is done through a number of activities which include supporting the livelihoods of people so that they can integrate the environment.

The community groups we have, they are involved in tree planting especially in Agroforestry so that the carbon sequestration can be enhanced through tree planting and this is done by planting diversity of trees because our tree planting involve diverse species like typical agroforestry species, but we also include indigenous species so that the biodiversity loss that we observe all around can be also taken into consideration.

When you look at our landscapes around, the indigenous species have been completely eroded. So, this is the big challenge that we have as country.

I am glad that Rwanda has committed to restore our landscapes as part of the Bonn Challenge to restore 2 million hectares and this restoration has also to integrate biodiversity aspects.

This is really a very good opportunity for an organization like ARCOS to support this National Agenda.

TOP AFRI CANEWS: What can we expect in the next 25 years or more?

Dr. Sam Kanyamibwa: The challenges are growing, when you look at the global issues that we face in the World, biodiversity loss is one of them, the land degradation, the gap between the rich and the poor, when you see the development of Infrastructure, business development, unfortunately you find that those who are acting on the ground, the poor people are generally affected. 

So, it is very important to help poor people in promoting sustainable actions on the ground so that they can integrate better the environment in their operations like sustainable agriculture, conservation of water, etc.

In a country like Rwanda for example where erosion is a big problem, how can working on the land for food production can at the same time take care of biodiversity loss, can take care of water and also reduce erosion we have in this country.

There are many other aspects, particularly climate change. This is the big challenge we have. So, in organizations like ARCOS and other actors, we really need to continue to increase our intervention so that Climate change is faced and build resiliency in terms of environment, communities, livelihoods, and we can really face the challenges we have today.

There are many other issues related to pollution which is affecting the rivers. The water we drink for example.

Explicitly, the green economy, green development, is an aspect where, not only Government, civil society organization like ARCOS, have to face in the future, so that when we look an Africa with the agenda 2063, the vision like we have here in Rwanda the vision 2050, all these are going to be reached only if we integrate the Environment and sustainability.

TOP AFRI CANEWS: What is the ARCOS’s call today?

Dr. Sam Kanyamibwa: We are a membership organization, and I take this opportunity to pay special recognition for our members, our Associates and of course our staff.

And today again, I take this opportunity also to invite other people interested in Environment and sustainability to join ARCOS as members. Our membership is very simple. It is based on the willingness to be proud to join an organization which is advocating and acting for a better future.