The Ministry of the Environment, Agriculture and Livestock has signed on June 20 a partnership with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for a project to ensure environment protection which will last 2 years and cost US $ 300,000.
Handshake between the Environment Minister (left) and the FAO representative after signing a partnership agreement.
Déo-Guide Rurema, Minister of the Environment, Agriculture and Livestock says this project will help to work in synergy with the local population to better conserve and improve protected areas.
He says the ministry will sensitize the population to take advantage of the forest richness in order to prevent them from destroying protected areas for example by planting trees like bamboos, growing mushrooms and bees,” says Minister Rurema.
The Minister of the Environment believes that people need to understand that protected areas help in the protection from sudden climatic change and reduction of vulnerability to drought. “Thus, they will not go into the forests to destroy them. Rather they will improve environment protection,” he says.
Rurema has said this project will be operational in some localities where protected areas are more threatened.
For Isaias Angue Obama, representative of FAO in Burundi, the project will improve good management of protected areas in Burundi. “This does not mean that there will be strict management of protected areas, rather it is to better coordinate the management of these protected areas together with the local population.” The objective is to guide the population to initiate income-generating activities for their development in protected areas.
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