Rwanda: Citizens in the Southern Province express confidence in the Green Amayaga FLR project
By Justin Kayiranga
The Green Amayaga Forest Landscape Restoration in the Mayaga region (FLR Mayaga) project is a ground-breaking six-year project initiative that will afforest the degraded ecosystem and restore the natural forests of four districts of Amayaga in Rwanda’s southern Province specifically in the districts of Gisagara, Nyanza, Ruhango and Kamonyi.
The project aims to promote biodiversity, fostering ecosystem services, increasing agriculture productivity and reducing the vulnerability of people and ecosystems to the adverse effects of climate change.
According to officials since the project started in October, 2020; there have been achievements in categories such as in planting of agro-forestry species, restoring degraded forests and distribution of improved and energy efficient cook stoves to reduce wood consumption while at the same time reduce greenhouse gases emissions and halt indoor airborne diseases among the local community.
When you assess the work done so far, you find that it is 25% of the general performance of the project as explains Nkurunziza Philbert, Green Amayaga Project Coordinator
He said “Currently we have reached about 25% of what is expected to be done in six years. There are major activities achieved, for example in environmental conservation for the restoration of agro-ecosystems, more than 1,400,000 trees have been planted, and some trees have been planted along the river banks in order to conserve the water bodies.”
“About 11,000 households have also been given improved cook-stoves, with the aim of reducing the use of fire woods while also reducing greenhouse gases emissions.” Nkurunziza added
During the visit in this region, TOPAFRICANEWS reporter went to different parts of the region to explore what has been achieved during the first year of the project implementation and below is what he has found.
Community perception towards the project
Among the project’s goals, include helping the community use less firewood for forest conservation, and to teach farmers about agroforestry where they are encouraged to plant trees such as fruit trees to help fight malnutrition.
Speaking to this website’s reporter, residents of Amayaga region expressed their confidence in the project noting a year after the project launch, they have begun to see some tangible results.
Ndayisaba Laurent, a resident in Kamonyi District, said “We started planting trees in November 2020 and now you can see that they are growing.”
“This place used to be like a desert, severely damaged by erosion, but now we have a hope that the erosion will decline because of the region’s rehabilitation activities.” Ndayisaba added
Apart from Ndayisaba, Mrs. Iyakaremye Fortune also testifies the success of the one year basing on the fact that she is among those who received Improved and energy efficient Cook stoves that saved her from relying on fire woods.
“Based on the fact that there are not forests in our region, we couldn’t get enough firewood to use when cooking, but since they gave us Improved and energy efficient Cook stoves known as Isonga, we can see these cook stoves consume less firewood compared to the cooking methods we were using before the project launch” Mrs. Iyakaremye said.
Restoration of Kibirizi-Muyira forest
The forest plays a core role in the Green Amayaga project. It occupies about 390Ha in Nyanza district and is well known for its unique nature of more than 100 species of trees, as well as accommodating a variety of wild animals.
Aimable Nsengimana, Nyanza District Forestry and Natural Resources Officer, told TOPAFRICANEWS that in the process of restoring the degraded area of the forest, they first resolved the issues regarding some residents who claimed different parts of the forest.
So far, trees have now been planted on 182 hectares as a buffer zone of this forest in order to prevent the population from continuing to destroy it.
“We found that there are families who had registered some parts of the forest as their own properties. But a task force from the Ministry of Environment and line institutions has been set up to address the issue in order to restore the boundaries of these forests.” Explains Nsengimana.
He added that “What we did, from the Kibirizi side, was to create a fence (buffer-zone) separating the forest from the community, where we planted trees on an area of 182 hectares. So, with the project we will extend the fence to the part of Muyira.”
The Green Mayaga Forest Landscape Restoration project is supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and is being implemented by the Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA) in partnership with the Rwanda Forestry Authority (RFA) and the districts of Kamonyi, Ruhango, Nyanza and Gisagara.
