New Forestry Reform Gets US$50 Million From World Bank

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New Forestry Reform Gets US$50 Million From World Bank

5:47 CAT | 07 Dec 2015

Jornal Notícias

Under an agreement concluded in Paris, the World Bank is to grant US$50 million to Mozambique to help the country reform its forestry sector.

The agreement signed by the Minister of Land, Forestry and Rural Development of Mozambique, Celso Correia and the Director of the World Bank Climate Change, John Roome, is aimed at financing reforms the government will start implementing in 2016, designed to promote a profound change in the management of forestry resources.

According Folha de Maputo, the current scenario is characterized by excesses that result in insignificant gains for the state and the communities and lead to the degradation of the local and global environment through progressive deforestation.

The reforms that the Ministry of Land, Forestry and Rural Development has prepared will cost approximately US$85 million, with the World Bank’s guaranteed contribution of US$50 million payable immediately.

The reforms were presented about fifteen days ago in Maputo and lay down stricter conditions for issuing operating licenses, and the immediate suspension of raw logs exports to encourage the local processing of wood.

The timber operators will be obliged to implement reforestation programs and national and international investors will have to invest in factories to produce furniture and other goods from the timber they harvest locally.

Mozambique, where forest covers 51 percent of the country’s approximately 800,000 square kilometres surface area, is currently experiencing a deforestation rate of 0.58 percent, or 219 000 hectares per year. The government reforms aim to lower the rate to 0.2% per year.

Source: Folha de Maputo