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Private investments will drive forest landscape restoration: top conservationist

Xinhua, July 29, 2016 Adjust font size:

Increasing private investments into degraded forest reserves will boost Africa's commitment to restore million hectares of deforested lands, said Luther Bois Anukur, regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa at International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

In an interview with Xinhua on Thursday after attending Africa high level Bonn Challenge roundtable meeting in Kigali, Capital of Rwanda, Anukur emphasized on the importance of mobilizing private investments to enable the continent realize forest restoration target.

"Many countries across Africa have pledged to restore degraded and deforested land but these countries need to engage private investors to fully participate so that there are no setbacks in the process," he added.

During Bonn Challenge roundtable Kigali meeting, environment experts from Africa and beyond reaffirmed commitment to ensure the Bonn Challenge target becomes a reality.

The Bonn Challenge is a global ambition to restore 150 million hectares of the world's deforested and degraded lands by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030.

According to Michael Kleine, deputy executive director, International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), there is need to identify policy and institutional reforms that hamper forest landscape restoration drive and to help create an enabling climate for accelerated private sector investment.

"If there is political will on the ground, nothing will impede efforts put in by individual countries towards forest landscape restoration," he said.

The Bonn Challenge event brought together participants including ministers, environment experts and conservationist from more than 20 African countries that have demonstrated leadership on forest landscape restoration.

At the meeting, delegates adopted Kigali Declaration on Forest Landscape Restoration in Africa which called on African governments to mainstream restoration into their national development policies; strengthen continental capacity for restoration; and reinforce the collaboration on forest landscape restoration across the region and south-south collaboration. Enditem