- Liberian communities affected by the logging staged a sit-in protest in front of the country’s finance ministry to demand unpaid royalties.
- Cookstoves and woodsheds are the first steps in a plan to stop deforestation in southern Zimbabwe.
- A plantation initiative is also experimenting with providing Zimbabwean farmers with seeds from indigenous trees instead of seedlings.
- Forests & Finance is Mongabay’s bi-weekly summary bulletin on African forests.
Liberian forest communities were to receive a portion of the logging fees.say they got a sliver
Monrovia, Liberia — Several Liberia communities affected by logging held a sit-in in front of the country’s Ministry of Finance on September 29 to demand unpaid royalties.
The 2006 reform requires that 30% of land rentals paid by logging companies for concessions be distributed to neighboring communities. A National Benefit Sharing Trust (NBFT) was established to coordinate the collection and distribution of this fund to the community.
But the government has not lived up to its promises, say villagers represented by the National Federation of Community Forestry Development Committees. In a press release, NUCFDC said the government paid just $200,000 in 2021. According to union calculations, the state owes communities $5.5 million from fees he collected from logging companies between 2009 and 2019.
According to NUCFDC, the 2022 national budget allocated more than $2.7 million in rent for the community, but the trust created to pay for that money only received $100,000.
NUCFDC President Vincent Dou said it was “disappointing and does not represent the purpose of the anti-poverty program put in place by the authorities, nor is it consistent with the government’s ambition to support development and prosperity.”
Forest communities will seek other sources to claim the full 30% they are owed by law, including a petition to the President and another sit-in at the Forest and Climate Resilience Forum on October 5 and 6 in Monrovia. are considering the actions of
Can Cookstoves and Flower Pots Stop Deforestation in Southern Zimbabwe?
BEITBRIDGE, Zimbabwe — Conservation NGO Rangelands Regeneration says it plans to provide 4,000 households in southern Zimbabwe with fuel-efficient wood stoves. This is part of a larger project to protect the forests of the Beitbridge area.
“Firewood collection is rampant in Beitbridge West,” says RR CEO Steve Pocock.
Commercial loggers harvest timber in the area and transport it in five-ton trucks for resale to residents of the border town of Beitbridge. Demand for firewood is also high among locals, who spend a lot of time looking for firewood, buying it from lumber merchants, or hiring carts to collect it from elsewhere.
According to NGOs, stoves imported from Kenya use 70% less wood than open flames and burn twigs or small sticks to channel heat into the center of the stove, reducing cooking time.
So far, about 3,000 stoves have been distributed to three municipalities in Beitbridge West District, Mr Pocock told Mongabay.
Zimbabwe’s Forestry Commission, the government agency that oversees forests, and the country’s Environmental Management Agency are helping with project coordination and technical assistance. A local NGO, My Trees Trust (MTT), provides cookstoves and helps distribute them.
Alongside stoves to reduce pressure on forests for firewood, RR supports the creation of plantations aimed at increasing the supply of sustainable firewood. Starting in December, at least 6,000 of her seedlings will be distributed to her 10 volunteers in each of her three areas within the district. Volunteers are provided with scholarships for three years to establish and manage a terminal plantation of purple pods (terminal prunioides) and other endemic species.
Pocock says the tree species were selected based on “what burns best.” In three years, he says, the plantation will be established. “At this point, it is up to each family to cut down the tree or not.”
The stove and plantation are the first phase of RR’s long-term vision to help the Beitbridge community transition from wood to alternatives such as solar power, Pocock said. RR also promotes the adoption of small-scale solar, clean cooking, and other energy products with financing schemes that lower barriers to purchase.
“There are some very interesting pay-as-you-go models around the world that we think could be applied to address energy demand, and we are investigating their applicability to these and local conditions,” he says.
Zimbabwe reforestation initiative experiments with seeds, not seedlings
Zimbabwe — Meanwhile, My Trees Trust says it plans to distribute millions of indigenous tree seeds to encourage smallholder farmers to plant them. In addition, MTT will plant 320,000 seedlings in the next phase of its ambitious reforestation strategy.
Afforestation efforts have typically relied on planting seedlings. Distributing seed packs is an experiment.
Founded in 2019, My Trees Trust estimates the cost of getting seedlings into the hands of farmers at $2.50 per tree, and the cost of distributing seeds via seed packs at less than a cent. .
The seed pack distribution business relies on the willingness of farmers to read the instructions and get the seeds to germinate correctly. It is expected that they will plant them along the contours of the fields, as well as around field edges and homesteads.
According to MTT co-founder Nick De Swardt, the seeds will be distributed in packs of about 1,000, including five acacias and two acacias. Bauhinia.
These are considered pioneer trees, says De Swardt. “When you look at farmlands that are naturally regenerating, these seeds are the first to come back.”
It may be a gamble, but Zimbabwean farmers spend a lifetime planting seeds, monitoring the seasons, and coping with declining soil quality. .
“It’s a very cheap way to plant trees in the ground,” says De Swardt.
Deforestation is accelerating in Zimbabwe and the country is losing much. BrachystegiaAlso Musasa Provides woodlands to farmers who need firewood for curing tobacco in wood-burning barns or as a household fuel.
The Trust will conduct a survey in February to assess the effectiveness of the distribution program.
Zimbabwe’s forests are smoking to feed tobacco habits
Banner image: Printer Fatu Joe marks logs from a forest clearing for easy identification from a distance. Image by Flore de Preneuf/PROFOR via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)
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