United Nations project to revive Zambia’s forest

ORIGINAL: Daily Mail-Zambia

By DOREEN NAWA
July 19, 2012

MONITORING forestry losses in Zambia and the effects that the loss has on the environment can be a challenge because of lack of technical know-how.

NURSERY for future forest

Following the effects that deforestation has on the environment in relation to climate change, the situation in Zambia is rather a hopeless case for the lack of expertise in monitoring and managing forestry countrywide.

Environmental advocates say that forests play a critical role in mitigating climate change through the confiscation and storage of carbon in woody perennial biomass and soils.

Unfortunately, deforestation and forest degradation account for approximately 18 percent of annual global carbon dioxide emissions.

But all hope is not lost following the recently held training organised by the forestry department in the Ministry of Lands, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection under the United Nations collaborative programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (UN-REDD) project and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The training was meant to build capacity of stakeholders in greenhouse gas reporting as well as Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system as support to the readiness process of forestry management in Zambia.

“The training is critical to the sustainability and successful management of out forests in the country. By the way addressing the driver of deforestation is the cheaper way of addressing climate change,” director in the forestry department, Anne Masinja says.

According to Mrs Masinja, management of the forest has been a challenge following massive deforestation due to charcoal burning, unsustainable agricultural and unsustainable land use practices.

“It is a pity that most of the people do not realise the harm they are causing to the environment due to careless cutting of trees. Loss of forests contributes as much as 30 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions each year and this is very dangerous, we need to do something to stop this,” Mrs Masinja says.

Zambia has approximately 50 million hectares of forest, with an estimated deforestation rate of 250,000 to 300,000 hectares per year.

“Zambia is faced with a number of challenges in reducing deforestation and forest degradation caused by various factors like energy requirement, unsustainable agricultural and unsustainable land use practices, timber and non-timber forest products extraction, mining and infrastructure development,” Mrs Masinja said.

Statistics show that between 1990 and 2010, Zambia lost an average of 166,600 hectares or 0.32 per cent per year of its forest mainly due to deforestation resulting from charcoal burning (energy requirements), unsustainable agricultural and land use practices such as mining and infrastructure development, and timber and non-timber forest products extraction.

Indiscriminate charcoal burning is fast destroying Zambia's forest cover. 

Indiscriminate charcoal burning is fast destroying Zambia's forest cover.

With global concern growing over deforestation, loss of carbon stored in forests and the role of forests in climate change, the spotlight has been turned on forest monitoring in a bid to safeguard forests and monitor emissions from deforestation.

In another recent effort in the monitoring and managing of the forest in the country was the handover of Geographical Information System (GIS) equipment to the department.

As part of the mission to monitor the remaining forest in the country, the participants were also trained to undertake a countrywide remote sensing survey of forests.

The survey will substantially improve knowledge on land use including deforestation, reforestation and natural expansion of forests.

It is hoped that the training and the handover of new GIS equipment, the forestry department and other stakeholders will strengthen the capacity of all provinces countrywide to monitor their own forests.

“The need to improve national forest monitoring is overwhelming as the demand for information has never been greater even in the face of some challenges. National policy processes are striving to address cross-cutting issues such as poverty alleviation and food security related to forests,” Julian Fox, Food and Agriculture Organization UN-REDD MRV facilitator for Zambia says.

FAO supports Zambia’s efforts to close the knowledge gap through field inventories and forest monitoring systems.

“Deforestation continues at an alarming rate of about 13 million hectares annually at the global level. By combining remote sensing technology with field data collection, we improve the quality of both methods. This provides more accurate information on forest trends and new information on the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation,” Dr Fox says during his facilitation at the training.

About REDD

In 2005, a group of developing countries launched a new initiative that put forest conversation on the international agenda known as REDD.

While REDD is a new name, the activities to ensure reduced deforestation and forest degradation are well known to Zambians and these include conservation agriculture, community based natural resources management, joint forest management, sustainable energy projects (solar, improved stoves), enhancing policy and legislative frameworks.

REDD therefore calls for an integrated approach to forest management, the main reason for the training.

Land use change and especially deforestation contributes about 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the UN-REDD programme, Zambia is expected to come up with a policy statement to regulate forest and the country is said to have been making steady progress towards the UN-REDD collaborative programme.

The UN-REDD programme assists developing countries to prepare and implement national REDD strategies and mechanisms towards addressing climate change.

Zambia is one of the nine countries piloting the UN-REDD programme that helps countries to get ready for the REDD mechanism in addressing climate change.

The other eight countries include Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bolivia, Viet Nam, Paraguay, New Papua Guinea, Panama and Indonesia.

And during the training, UN-REDD national co-ordinator Deuteronomy Kasaro said, “UN-REDD Programme is not a development project as it has been understood by some, but instead it is a process of consultations, strategic planning, creative thinking and seeking realistic solutions to reduce deforestation and forest degradation and make REDD work for Zambia.”

“In recognition of the role REDD can plan in reducing emissions and facilitating sustainable socio-economic development, the Government of the Republic of Zambia is presently assessing the opportunities that can be potentially delivered through REDD,” Mr Kasaro added.

While the goal of reversing deforestation and achieving sustainable development is clear, the path to reach it can only be paved by Zambia and Zambians themselves.

The growing interest among stakeholders towards REDD is felt not only through the high participation in the training while developing its UN-REDD national programme document, but also through the numerous questions and discussions with people and organisations willing to support the efforts to protect the forests in Zambia.

The questions range from a request to provide seedlings for a tree-planting at a local school for guidance on designing sub-national forest monitoring systems that are aligned to the national measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) framework.

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation or REDD also mitigates climate change by changing the amount of carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere from the existing forest carbon stocks.

Carbon is becoming a commodity which can be managed and traded as a household and community income stream. The involvement in measurement and monitoring of forest carbon by local people can empower them as co-managers of areas under REDD projects.

At international level it has been recognised that addressing the drivers of deforestation is one of the cheaper ways to mitigate against the impact of climate change. Hence the ability of stakeholders to assess and monitor landuse changes aimed at addressing the drivers of deforestation being vital.

It is believed that understanding drivers of deforestation and sources of greenhouse gas emissions in landuse, landuse change and forestry will enhance capacity to effectively monitor the source and potential changes.

In fact poverty plays a major role in deforestation. Just like in any other developing country, in Zambia most people in rural areas have no the options for survival like jobs or reliable businesses and rural people end up in the forest for survival.

The high poverty level costs the entire world through the loss of forests (deforestation). Without finding a lasting solution to poverty, saving the forests providing for these people, rainforests cannot be saved.

Misunderstandings

While there are uncertainties in both the international REDD framework and the national arrangements, it is essential not to let these uncertainties discourage the actors who feel the urgency of acting now to stop deforestation.

To quell misunderstandings about the programme and to reassure the multitude of actors involved, a significant part of the programme funding has been allocated to building the institutional arrangements and stakeholder engagement processes that provide a platform for discussing the issues and finding the answers that work best the Zambian context.