Over 500 million dollars raised for miombo forest

Maputo, 24 Sep (AIM) – Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi has announced that over 500 million dollars has been raised at the high-level dialogue on the Miombo Initiative.

According to the President, who was speaking to reporters, on Tuesday, at the end of his four-day working visit to New York, where he attended various events, including the United Nations General Assembly, “we managed to convince the world that the Miombo forest must be protected.”

“This requires resources, but we humbly point out that management needs to be with maximum transparency, because the Miombo doesn’t just belong to Mozambique”, he said.

The miombo woodlands cover around two million square kilometers in southern Africa and provide countless goods and services that guarantee the livelihoods of over 300 million inhabitants. The miombo is a biome that includes tropical and subtropical grasslands, bushlands and savannahs.

The fundraising for Miombo Initiative, which is known as the Maputo Declaration, was signed by ten Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, namely: Mozambique, Angola, Botswana, Malawi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

“It was clear there that the donors’ financial support is over 500 million dollars, but I don’t think the figure will stop there. That’s why I say that a management mechanism needs to be set up, because it’s a regional project. Miombo is now on the world map”, Nyusi said.

The Mozambican government, which is leading the project, mobilized 153 million dollars in 2022, and now a further 500 million dollars have been added. The planned initiatives are based above all on mapping and recovering the regions most affected by deforestation as well as on monitoring and developing income-generating projects that are alternatives to forest exploitation.

According to Nyusi, who is serving his last term in office as president, “we run and hand over. Then someone else continues. Until the last day I have to run, to see if I deliver at an early finish line, because if I leave at a late finish line, whoever continues will have to make up for lost time.”

(AIM)

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