Growing Forests

 Malawi plans by 2030 to plant trees and restore other degraded land, in an effort to reverse rampant forest losses in the country, forestry officials said this week.

The area set to be rehabilitated covers 4.5 million hectares – nearly half of the country’s total land area, according to Tangu Isabel Tumeo, the principal forestry officer in the country’s Department of Forestry.

Altogether the country has lost 7.8 million hectares of trees since the 1980s, according to government figures.

The ambitious forest restoration initiative is part of the country’s commitment to the Bonn Challenge, agreed by nations in Germany in 2011. That effort calls for the restoration of 350 million hectares of degraded land worldwide by 2030. African nations have pledged to provide 100 million hectares of reforestation toward that target.

In Malawi, the government aims to improve the protection and management of 1 million hectares of natural forests and plantations by 2020 and 2 million hectares by 2030 and restore 500,000 hectares of deforested or degraded forest by 2030. It also aims to plant 20 million trees along rivers and streams by 2020.

The government also wants to see 50 percent of the country’s crop land planted to at least 10 percent trees by 2020, with 80 percent planted in that way by 2030. Malawi also aims to increase the size of community forests and woodlots and improve or expand commercial forest plantations