Today in Kigali, Rwanda, Federal Environment Minister Hendricks, together with Rwandan Minister of Natural Resources Vincent Biruta and Environment Minister of El Salvador Lina Pohl, laid the foundations for the first South-South cooperation on forest restoration. Due to forest loss, Rwanda and El Salvador are particularly affected by the consequences of climate change. The Federal Environment Ministry supports both countries in the area of forest restoration with almost 14 million euros from the International Climate Initiative (ICI).
Minister Hendricks commented: "Forest loss is a threat to local sustainable development. The local population's sources of livelihood disappear along with the forests. Rwanda and El Salvador’s forest restoration efforts not only promote climate action and species diversity, but help alleviate poverty and achieve sustainable development as well. We will assist both countries in drawing up a framework for also making forest restoration attractive to private investors."
During her visit to Rwanda, Minister Hendricks was able to get an impression of forest restoration activities and forest landscapes. An initial cooperation on the establishment and management of coffee forests was agreed on. Rwanda and El Salvador will present their joint activities at the Climate Change Conference in Marrakesh in November and at the Biodiversity Convention in Cancun in December.
The idea for the partnership has its roots in the Bonn Challenge. Five years ago, the Federal Government launched the Bonn Challenge - one of the most important international action platforms for saving forests. The target of the Bonn Challenge is to restore 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested lands globally by 2020. The target of 350 million hectares has been set for 2030. Nearly 30 countries have already pledged to restore 113 million hectares. This was followed by regional conferences of the action platform in Latin America in 2015 and Africa in 2016 at which concrete ideas were developed. Since then, both countries have set ambitious goals for restoring their forests: in its environment development plan, Rwanda has set itself the goal of once again reaching 30 percent forest cover by 2020.