Rwanda and Burundi promise to work together in conservation matters

 Rwandan and Burundian officials have vow to support their joint efforts towards conservation of Nyungwe and Kibira parks in an effort to wipe out the existing threats to the forests’ biodiversity in the two countries. They made the promise during their meeting in the southern district of Nyamagabe to discuss strategies that they can use to alleviate the trans-boundary threats and management of Nyungwe and Kibira landscape.

According to Faustin Karasira, the Rwanda Development Board’s Head of Product Development, conservation threats can only be solved through sustained trans-boundary collaboration between the two nations since the encroachers move from one country to another and cause problems there but if they are not safe in either countries, then they will stop the habit. For starters, the meeting resolved to maintain closer ties to ensure that encroachment on the parks is eliminated and keep devising strategies to ensure that biodiversity is safe and protected in both countries.

Reporters say that both leaders also came up with policies and programs which are useful in the improvement of the socio-economic status of communities that are living around the parks as are way of encouraging them to protect the parks.

Meanwhile Mohamed Feruzi,   the Director of Burundi’s National Institute of Environment and Nature Conservation, said that the involvement of all stake holders including residents is very vital to conservation efforts.

This follows a memorandum of understanding signed between Rwanda and Burundi in 2008 emphasizing mutual partnership in the protection of the shared landscape. That agreement also set ground for the sharing of skills and best conservation practices among participants in both countries.

These two parks are very popular in tourism business where by Nyungwe National Park is one of the most acclaimed biodiversity rainforests in Africa covering more than 1,000 square kilometers and it is a home to more than 280 birds and 13 primate species and with a diverse ecosystem ranging from rainforest, bamboo, grassland, swamps, rivers to butterflies, moths and insects. Nyungwe is contiguous to Burundi’s Kibira, and together they form the largest protected forest block in the whole of East Africa.

Unfortunately, both parks are faced with various threats including high density of human populations along the parks’ borders and human encroachment activities like animal poaching, mining, tree cutting, and fires set by people smoking bees from their hives, settlement and many more. All these activities endanger biodiversity within the landscape and if not stopped, they can destroy the forests.

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