Local Impact Forest Governance Project (Country cluster Tree Planting)

PROJECT THEME: FOREST CONSERVATION (CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION) COUNTRY FOCUS: Zambia PROJECT TITLE: Local Impact Forest Governance Project (Country cluster Tree Planting) DURATION: 15 YEARS TOTAL BUDGET (FUNDING REQUIRED) $330 million+ FULL PROPOSAL AVAILABLE PROJECT SUMMARY Forests and forest governance have received increasing attention in recent years. A major factor contributing to stimulating this interest is the recognition of the fact that deforestation has reached alarming levels and continents around the world risk depleting all their forest cover. First and foremost, forests are natural supermarkets for one billion of the world’s poorest people. They provide goods and services that support the agricultural sector, safeguarding biodiversity for more than 7,000 species of plants and animals and hydrological services to agriculture, moderating the quantity and quality of surface water available for irrigation and controlling the sedimentation of irrigation infrastructure. Secondly, protein from wildlife is crucial to rural food security and livelihoods across tropics. The harvest of animals provides benefits to local people worth millions of US dollars annually and represents around six million tonnes of animals extracted yearly. However, the factors affecting conservation, management and sustainable use of forests or influence the pressure on forests are multiple. These factors are usually linked with broader governance and conservation conditions that ultimately have an effect on forests as the continent faces mainstream threats of climate change which is likely going to have devastating effects more than our current Covid-19 pandemic. MAIN OBJECTIVE [login to view URL] generate knowledge and practical tool to support the Government of the Republic of Zambia’s efforts reduce deforestation and generate co-benefits such as poverty alleviation, biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation agenda by strengthening local citizen’s participation in forest conservation processes through tree planting mainly Pinewood and Eucalyptus trees and advancing broad ecological principles.