IUCN’s Regional Head of Land Systems, Malawi Minister of natural resources and climate change discuss Landscape Restoration

IUCN’s Regional Head of Land Systems and Malawi Minister of natural resources and climate change

By TOP AFRICA NEWS Reporter.

Charles Karangwa, IUCN’s Regional Head, Land Systems (Forests, Drylands, Conservation Agriculture) and Rwanda Country Representative met with Hon Eisenhower Mkaka, Malawi’s Minister of Natural resources and climate change.

The two officials discuss ongoing investments in support to Malawi’s Forests Landscape Restoration’s agenda, the upcoming IUCN Director General visit to Malawi & other areas of cooperation.

Karangwa tweeted after the meeting that “It was indeed a great meeting”

“We are trustees of natural resources on behalf of future generations”, we do therefore have responsibilities to sustainably manage, preserve and restore Mother Nature.Thank you Hon. Minister for the leadership.”

According to IUCN, Forest landscape restoration (FLR) is the ongoing process of regaining ecological functionality and enhancing human well-being across deforested or degraded forest landscapes.

The restoration interventions in Malawi are implemented as part of the ‘Large-Scale Forest Landscape Restoration in Africa’, a regional project that targets four countries: Rwanda, Kenya, Cameroon and Malawi for forest landscape restoration.

Pressure on natural resources, particularly forests, is very high in Malawi because of the increasing reduction of land available for agriculture, increasing energy requirements and conflicts related with land use.

To address this problem, in Malawi, projects are being implemented to restore forests and landscape while at the same time improving agriculture.

In Malawi, FAO is coordinating FLR implementation in close collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the World Resources Institute (WRI), and the World Bank.

Under the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100), Malawi committed in 2016 to restoration of 4.5 million ha in the country by 2030. The project supports achievement of this target under both the AFR100 and the Bonn Challenge. It also aligns with Malawi’s National Forest Landscape Restoration Strategy and National Charcoal Strategy (2017).

Malawi’s participation in this FLR initiative will advance Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15: Life on Land, and contribute to the achievement of SDG 2: Zero Hunger, SDG 5: Gender equality, SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG 13: Climate Action and SDG 14: Life below Water.