Uganda through Restore Africa organization is set to restore degraded land and put it into good use and scale up smallholder farming to save the environment.
To achieve the set target, The Global EverGreening Alliance, Climate Asset Management and the AFR100 are bringing together governments, grassroot organizations and private sector investors to plan a road map of restoration to COP27.
The 5-day African Land Restoration Forum will facilitate the creation of an action plan for collaboration to address the barriers we face and the challenges posed by climate change. The stakeholders taking part in this landmark collaborative effort will contribute to the conversion of AFR100 pledges into tangible results.
The African Land Restoration Forum follows the launch of Restore Africa, one of the largest farmer-led nature based carbon programmes in the world, directly improving the lives of over 9 million people.
Africa Land Restoration conference is being attended by over 15 African governments, global and local NGOs, corporate investors and donors. The Forum is aimed at building the capacity of all key stakeholders to make appropriate informed decisions in relation to private sector investment in voluntary carbon projects and the handling of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. It is also anticipated to create a dialogue where governments can actively work towards creating enabling environments for the scaling of restoration efforts.
The Global EverGreening Alliance’s Restore Africa Programme will accelerate and massively scale-up the adoption of contextually appropriate agroforestry practices, whilst drawing down and storing carbon in the landscape across the East and Southern African Region. Restore Africa will restore 1.9 million hectares of land and directly support the livelihoods of 1.5 million small-holder farming families.
The project will significantly contribute to the AFR100, which aims to bring at least 100 million hectares of degraded land under restoration by 2030.
Addressing journalists during the second day of the conference currently under way at Speke Resort Munyonyo, Christopher Kutscher, CEO Climate Asset Management said, “The scale of this one is very unique. It is the largest community-led land restoration programme in the world.”
Some of the topics that will be running throughout the forum include; Grassroots-driven land restoration programs, Climate change, Article 6, Policy reforms, Voluntary carbon markets, Climate financing investment opportunities and Monitoring of integrated carbon offsetting and landscape restoration projects among others.
“It demonstrates a new model for funding large-scale development initiatives, which puts the people directly impacted by climate change first, and in the process, creates more resilient landscapes,” said Chris Armitage, CEO, Global EverGreening Alliance.
According to the FAO and African Union Development Agency-NEPAD September 2021 report, over 65% of productive land is degraded, while desertification affects over 45% of Africa’s land area. And while the overall trend is moving downward, net loss of forests is still increasing in Africa, with four million hectares of forest disappearing every year.
Speaking at the conference, Jonathan Mariuki, the Interim Restore Africa Manager, remarked that the program will improve the livelihoods of over 250,000 households in the next 5 years.
“In the next five years we expect to have improved the livelihoods of 250,000 households, so if you go by an average of 6 people per household that’s going to be about 1.5 million people that will be impacted (in Kenya),” said Muriuki.
