Call to action to preserve mountains and prevent soil erosion in Africa

Elias Hakizimana Dec 14, 2022Feb 23, 2023 0 Comments

By Elias Hakizimana.

African residents are urged to preserve the mountains by planting more trees as one of the factors to protect environment and ensure biodiversity sustainability.

The call was made during the Africa Mountains Community-to-Community Exchange 2022 workshop in Kigali on December 14, 2022, with the theme: “Nature-Based Community Enterprises for Livelihoods and Environmental Resilience”.

The three-day workshop that is set to take place from December 14-16^th, 2022 brought together Over 200 people from the various African mountain communitieS who also showcased their products during the community exchange.

Sam Kanyamibwa, Executive Director of Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS) said that soil degradation caused by erosion is a challenging issue towards sustainable environment protection.

“We urge citizens across the continent to continue applying best environmental protection practices including tree plantation,” he said.

Kanyamibwa lauds efforts by the government of Rwanda to protect and preserve environment, noting that there is still a long journey to go.

“In this workshop, we are discussing how human activities can contribute to environment protection rather than destruction. There is no need to strive for development while destroying environment on another side,” he said.

Some citizens’ mindset needs to change to foster development activities in protecting the mountains according to the workshop’s participants.

“The first hindrance is poor mindset, the second one is lack of information on climate change and climate adaptation measures, we also still lack enough agroforestry trees near our households. We wish that ARCOS can continue supporting us by ensuring adequate community conversations to ensure that citizens have access to agroforestry trees,” said Louange Fortunée Mukanyandwi, a member of Green Kiware Cooperative from Gicumbi district.

According to Philippe Kwitonda, Director General in Charge of Land, Water and Forestry in Ministry of Environment (MoE), over 600,000 hectares of land need to be protected from soil erosion countrywide.

He said that this can be achieved by employing efforts from multi-stakeholders, being the government, private sector and civil society organizations.

“We are working with different institutions to encourage people to combat erosion on their land, thus protecting the environment, because erosion contributes to soil accumulation, also damaging natural resources, causing disasters, etc. Everyone’s role is paramount to tackle these challenges,” Kwitonda said.

About ARCOS Network

The Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS Network) is a regional conservation organization with the mission to enhance biodiversity conservation and sustainable management of natural resources in the Albertine Rift region, Africa Great Lakes region and African Mountains through the promotion of collaborative conservation actions for nature and people.