Advances claimed in sustainable forest management in Mozambique

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Advances claimed in sustainable forest management in Mozambique

7:49 CAT | 24 Feb 2017

Notícias (File photo)

The Mozambican Ministry of Land, Environment and Rural Development on Thursday claimed the country is making advances in the sustainable management of its forestry resources, while recognising the enormous challenges which still persist in the shape of illegal logging and uncontrolled bush fires.

This optimism was expressed by the National Director of Forests, Xavier Sacumbuera, speaking in Maputo at a seminar to present a progress report of the Project to Establish a Sustainable Platform of Information of Forestry Resources, in order to monitor REDD+ in Mozambique.

REDD+ stands for “reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation”, a mechanism designed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The first significant decision on REDD+ was taken in 2007 and it is essentially a vehicle to reward developing countries financially for their verified efforts to reduce emissions and enhance removals of greenhouse gases through forest management.

According to Sacambuera, REDD+ in Mozambique is being pursued under the bilateral cooperation between Mozambique and Japan.

Sustainable management of forest resources, he said, involves developing a platform of information about those resources, allowing proper measurements, reporting and verification.

The Mozambican REDD+ is financed by the Japanese International Cooperation agency (JICA) to the sum of six million US dollars. Based on this programme, Mozambique launched a national forest inventory in 2016. Checking the information gathered from this survey with the last inventory, held in 2007, makes it possible to understand the nature and pace of forest degradation.

The figure for the period 2006-2011 was that deforestation was costing Mozambique an annual average of 0.53 per cent of its forested area (or about 220,000 hectares a year). The causes of this deforestation include slash and burn agriculture, charcoal production, mining development and illegal logging.

The JICA resident representative, Katsuyoshi Sudo, said that the activity under way seeks to ascertain the current level of forest coverage, and what forestry resources are used for. This knowledge will help in the monitoring of deforestation and forest degradation.

The current estimate is that the total area of forest in Mozambique is 40.1 million hectares, which means that 51 per cent of the country’s total land area is covered with forest.

Information gathered under the REDD+ programme is intended to help strike a balance between sustainable economic development and forest conservation.

Source: AIM