5 June 2011, 06:00 a.m.

Forests: Nature at Your Service

The celebration of World Environment Day (WED) is an annual global day for positive environmental action. 

The 5th of June is the day the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, also called the Stockholm conference, began in 1972. This was the UN's first major conference on international environmental issues.

It has evolved into one of the most important ways for the UN to promote world-wide awareness of the environment, and encourage political action and attention. 

The dedicated hash-tag to follow on twitter is #wed. See specific WED activites on on a dedicated map put up by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

2011: Host City & Theme

This year India has been named the Global Host of World Environment Day 2011, and the theme is 'Forests: Nature at Your Service', highlighting the many essential life-sustaining values that forests provide and the intrinsic link between our quality of life and the health of forest ecosystems.

Essential Environmental Concerns in Africa

The forests in Africa are essential stores for carbon; over 20% of the carbon of the world is insulated in the topical and subtropical forests, wetlands and savannahs of Africa. 

The current rate of deforestation due to exploitations and agricultural expansion is a major contributing factor to environmental degradation. Out of 21 countries identified as emitting the highest greenhouse gasses, six are in Africa. Poor policy, as well as institutional, technical and economic constraints of African countries has undermined the adoption of sustainable forest management (SFM) for the continent.

China and India have developed into major markets for African timber and the production for international markets increased between 2007 and 2009, while it decreased in Asia and Latin America.

In an effort to mitigate the effects of forest restoration, re-forestation and afforestation a number of re-forestation projects are underway.

The Great Green Wall – The Global Environment Facility (GEF) - is facilitating an 11-nation project to build a “Great Green Wall”, 4 400 miles long and nine miles wide across 11 countries in north Africa. It is aimed at combatting soil degradation in a zone spanning Senegal to Djibouti. The wall will cross through Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti

Efforts in specific Africa countries include 

Angola – the local authorities of the Tchicala Tcholoanga district in the central Huambo province have to date spent approximately four million Kwanzas on their 2011 reforestation programme.

Cameroon – a project to plant 4,000 young mangrove trees along the Douala II estuary, Bois des Singes, is underway. The increasing use of wood as kitchen fuel, and particularly to smoke fish, is fast depleting a valuable and prestigious mangrove resource and destroying the ecosystem in the process. Mangroves serve as vital fish nursery environment for important commercial and subsistence species, such as snappers, groupers, mullets, and blue crabs. They also act as the main barrier to prevent nutrient runoff that causes harmful algae blooms. Mangroves are also vital to maintaining the unique biodiversity of tropical systems.

DR Congo - Ibi village, located on the Batéké Plateau and approximately 150 kilometres (240 miles) from the capital Kinshasa, replanted its degraded forest to ensure an education for their children. The village also expects to generate carbon revenue from the project.

Ethiopia - is involved with a project to reforest five million hectares by 2025.  This effort goes hand-in-hand with projects to become energy-neutral at the same time. The project sees efforts to develop renewable resources in hydro, wind, geo-thermal and bio-gas.

Eritrea – a re-forestation program, involving ten villages in the Gala-Nefhi sub-zone, is planting cactus over a 65 hectare area, while it further includes soil and water conservation activities and the construction of terraces.

Niger has restored over five million hectares to productive farmed woodland by planting more than 200 million trees. People have realised the value of trees to increase farm yield and generate an income by selling fuel wood.

Rwanda is following in these steps to encourage tree planting to restore their forests and improve the livelihoods of its countrymen. 

Unfortunately, despite all these efforts, the challenges of demand for timber for the international market still remain, while deforestation takes place at an alarming pace to plant palm oil, soya beans, and other commodities. 

The African forests remain under threat.