TREE PLANTING CAMPAIGN GETS MORE ACTIVISTS: As Zambia loses forests at alarming rate

IN a recent post on his Facebook page, Minister of Green Economy and Environment Collins Nzovu talked about how, in the last eight years, he has managed to plant about 15, 000 trees.

He started the tree planting exercise, way before he ever imagined himself as a minister that would drive the green economy agenda. 

Tree planting has been part of his personal contribution to combat deforestation and climate change.

“Yesterday, we planted 100 trees at our farm in Kabwe and our target is to plant 500 trees before the end of 2022,” he wrote.

Mr Nzovu said, annually, approximately 15 billion trees are cut down globally and only five billion are planted, an indication that about 10 billion trees are being lost each year.

“Imagine an area of forest the size of a football pitch disappearing every second. That is the rate of deforestation globally,” he said. “And with approximately 3.4 trillion trees on earth and the rate at which we are losing trees, it is estimated that there will be none left within the next 300 years.”

His call therefore is simple - that all stakeholders take tree planting as a personal responsibility because it affects every one of us in one way or another.

In the same vein, with data indicating that Zambia’s deforestation rate is leading in Southern Africa and third globally, the Centre for Environment Justice (CEJ) has launched a project that will help prevent deforestation and protect the environment.

Dubbed ‘Stop the Chop Campaign’, the project, sponsored by the U.S Embassy in Zambia, will raise awareness on the need to protect nature and conserve forests – and it targets Mafinga district in Muchinga province.

The organisation was established in 2010 and existed as Youth Image Solutions (YIS), until 2012 when it was rebranded to Centre for Environment Justice.

Its mandate is to create platforms and processes that promote community access to quality and accurate information on environmental protection, extractive industries, sustainable energy, climate change, agriculture and water access.

CEJ executive director Maggie Mwape says the project will also help provide alternative livelihoods for communities that solely depend on forests for survival.

Ms Mwape said this when she called on Mafinga District Commissioner Boyd Kaonga recently.

“We crafted this initiative [campaign] because in 2021 at a Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, our global leaders, including President Hakainde Hichilema, signed a Glasgow Declaration targeting to end deforestation and unsustainable land use by the year 2030,” she said.

Its mission is to empower, enhance and strengthen environmentally challenged communities, youth, children, women and men by involving them in promoting environmental justice and sustainable management of natural resources.

“The signing of the Declaration means that our leaders need to start doing something about ending deforestation at the national level,” she said. “When we looked at that commitment, we thought that we needed to act upon it by contributing to helping our Government to achieve such a vision.”

Ms Mwape said the project is targeted at Mafinga because of its district’s strategic importance to Zambia's ecosystem.

The district which was named after the Mafinga Hills and has part of the source of the Luangwa River incorporates parts of the national forest reserve. It covers three chiefdoms led by Chief Muyombe, Chief Mwenechifungwe and Chief Mwenewisi.

“We identified the Mafinga District as a catchment area through desk research because it is an important area hosting the Mafinga Hills and the source of the Luangwa River,” said Ms Mwape. “We considered how best we can protect the natural resource and heritage of the Mafinga. We had to identify chiefdoms and some wards for the project.”

She observed that Muchinga Province topped among the regions with 50 percent tree cover loss between 2001 and 2020.

She said Mr Nzovu's disclosure that Zambia's deforestation rate is leading in Southern Africa and third globally left the organisation disturbed. Zambia has an estimated 45.9 million hectares forest cover.

“The Lands Research report for the last ten years revealed that Zambia had moved from 170 000 to 300 000 hectares of deforestation rate per annum,” Ms Mwape said.

According to Mr Kaonga, the Chitemene System, a slash and burn cultivation technique, has greatly contributed to deforestation in Mafinga, consequently affecting the rain pattern.

“Mafinga used to have heavy rainfall that would start as early as October to May but the rain pattern has completely shifted causing drought,” he said.

Zambia ranks top in Africa with deforestation. Mr Nzovu has in the past talked about how the country is faces many environmental challenges, including deforestation, that are derailing progress to its aspiration of becoming a prosperous middle-income nation by the year 2030.

“Deforestation now has reached an extent of almost 300,000 hectares a year - the highest in Africa and I think the third or so in the world,” he said at the launch of the Zambia Parliamentary Caucus on Environment and Climate Change (ZPCECC) and the Kavango Zambezi Transboundary Conservation Area (KAZA) regional meeting in Lusaka recently.

“It’s a rate we are not proud of,” he said. “As you will hear later on, deforestation is one of the major drivers of climate change in this country and we need to address it.”