The race to reinforce environmental protection, resilience to climate change

During the week commencing May 26, through June 3, 2016, Rwanda joined the international community in marking the 44th World Environment Day (WED), in active partnership with the One UN Rwanda Team and other partners. The activities ranged from a news conference on May 26 led by the Minister of Natural Resources to Umuganda around the Gashaki Green Village under the patronage of the Prime Minister and participation of several ministers and senior government officials, to public lectures at several higher learning institutions and a walk on June 3rd for air quality and motor vehicle emissions control. Undoubtedly, these were well thought out activities that did not fail to increase awareness among the Rwandan population about the dangers of climate change and the need for everybody to be involved in reinforcing the implementation of Rwanda’s well laid out strategies for green development, sound environmental management and climate resilience. The active involvement of senior government officials, right from the prime minister, no doubt underscores the commitment at the highest levels of the country’s leadership to environmental protection and building up climate resilience. The World Environment Day is a global event that is celebrated each year on June 5. It was established by the UN General Assembly in 1972 as one of the principal vehicles for reinforcing worldwide awareness on the imperatives for continued environmental protection and effective responses to climate change. This year, the global theme for WED has been: “Go wild for life”, which focuses on the fight against the illegal trade in wildlife. But a major component of it also focuses on the increasingly evident adverse effects of climate change and the need to step up response measures to it. Illegal trade in wildlife is no longer an abstract or distant issue. Organised trans-national as well as trans-regional environmental crimes are rapidly increasing threats to the environment, the economy, the social fabric, state security and global sustainable development. Wildlife crimes refer to the acts committed in violation of national and international laws and regulations intended to protect natural resources and sustainably manage their use. These crimes are committed to both fauna and flora, e.g. illegal poaching and trade in animals such as tigers, elephants, rhinoceros and falcons, but also in rare plants such as orchids, cacti, timber and other rare and precious forest products. The magnitude of this illegal trade is underscored by the fact that in certain regions (Africa, Asia and Latin America) it has become a highly lucrative trade, with illegal revenues in some areas at par with or even exceeding those from the much more recognized illegal trade in drugs. Although these problems continue to persist, there are huge efforts at national and international levels to counter the crimes which include, amongst others, awareness campaigns and investments in wildlife protection, community development biodiversity conservation, including policy formulation and law enforcement. Recently, Kenya took the rare step of burning in public several tons of elephant tusks with an estimated value of over US$ 300 million “to strike a strong blow” against illegal trade in wildlife products. This year’s theme for the global WED – “Go Wild for Life” – encourages all to celebrate those rare species in particular under threat and to take concrete actions to help safeguard them for future generations. And not only for the reason that these animals and plants are precious to some, but that when they are lost, we are all lose as well, socially, economically and spiritually. Action can be about animals or plants that are threatened within your local area as well as at the national or global level - many local extinctions will eventually add up to a global extinction! Whoever you are, and wherever you live, show zero-tolerance for illegal trade in wildlife in word and deed, and make a difference for the sake of both the present and future generations. The need to pay closer attention to broader environmental protection and greening the development process across the world is underscored by the fact that the past few decades have witnessed unprecedented adverse impacts of human activities on the environment (refered to as “global human footprint”). In its recent 2016 Economic Report on Africa, ECA most aptly puts it as follows: “All this demonstrates that since the early 1970s, humankind has been taking more from the planet’s resources than is sustainable in the long term, and that levels of consumption are overshooting the ecological boundaries. It also shows that continuing on the current pattern of growth (Business as Usual), we will overshoot the resources of two planet earths by 2040”. I believe that nothing captures better than this exhortation by ECA the urgency for a much more prudent management of mother earth’s dwindling precious resources. The unbridled intensity and scale of human activity is inducing violent changes in the earth’s climate, its water and nitrogen systems, its ocean temperatures and chemistry as well as the diversity of its biological life. Only the most stubborn observers can now continue to deny the adverse effects of all this: natural disasters of increasing magnitude and devastating effects; wild climate variability and significant global warming. This is why most of the world leaders agreed at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP 21) at the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris to keep global warming to under 2 degrees Celcius as well as to other pertinent measures. In this connection, Rwanda is on a very positive trajectory and has achieved a lot. Firstly, Rwanda is a signatory and has ratified several international treaties and conventions promoting biodiversity conservation and wildlife protection. Amongst these are the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and others. And nationally, the country’s medium and long-term strategies have integrated important components for sound environment and natural resources management with clear targetsobjectives for mainstreaming environment and climate change priorities into strategies and plans of all economic sectors and district plans. In 2011, the country launched the implementation of green growth and climate resilient strategy, and it has already registered some important successes. Importantly also, environmental crimes are being increasingly tackled by the Rwanda National Police. The Government of Rwanda’s commitment towards effective implementation of the various conventions it has signed and national environment management strategies has been demonstrated through various initiatives e.g. publishing regularly the Rwanda State of the Environment Report, releasing Rwanda Atlas of Changing Environment and the Rwanda Marshlands Inventory, which constitute important monitoring tools. Key policies and programmes that Rwanda is implementing are: the green growth and climate resilient strategy, National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, Environment and Climate Change Sub Sector Strategic Plan, Rwanda Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, to name but a few. Also of importance is the Rwanda Disaster risks Atlas which was released in 2015 with an overall objective of making investments more risks informed.We are pleased to note that, as a way of building on all these efforts, especially on on-going wildlife protection, the country appropriately adopted the following theme for 2016 WED: “Join the Race to Increase Resilience to Climate Change”. This theme carries a clear message and asks everyone to get involved in low- carbon and climate resilient development and practices by addressing the current and future vulnerability to climate change that face our homes, communities, villages and country. One main lesson learned from these initiatives and results obtained is that sustainable management of environment and natural resources is not only the work of the natural resources sector; it is rather the responsibility of all economic sectors to ensure a sustainable, low emission and climate resilient development for all people to live healthy, prosperous and happier lives. Although there are many achievements registered by Rwanda, considerable challenges still remain on the path towards climate resilient economic growth and sound management of the environment and natural resources. These challenges include the following: - Rapid population growth and increased urbanisation and industry.- Rainfall maldistribution and climate variability as well as soil erosion causing reduction of agriculture production and terrible landslides.- Challenges in accelerating clean energy production and improving the energy mix.- The need to step up modernization of the mining sector.- Expanding and greening transportation system.-Reinforcement of capacities for disaster management and prevention.- Pressures on land and deforestation.-Popularising Public and private partnerships. The One UN in Rwanda , through the 2013-2018 United Nations Development Assistance Programme (UNDAP), has committed to step up support to national initiatives in the areas of sound environment and natural resources management and more robust responses to the adverse effects of climate change. We are proud to see the results of joint efforts of the One UN and Government of Rwanda on different initiatives, to name but a few: (i) Reinforcement of strategies and policy frameworks for effective environmental management and green growth; (ii) the construction of green villages; (iii) Rehabilitation of critical fragile ecosystems, thereby providing support to communities in order to diversify livelihoods which consequently lessen the pressures on natural resources; (iv) A series of public expenditure reviews to assess current levels of spending vis-à-vis what is required and mobilise resources for critical areas like biodiversity conservation; (v) Supporting the establishment of Results Based Management (RBM) system in Environment and Natural Resources sector which will allow for consistent and rigorous tracking of progress against different targets set out in EDPRS 2; (vi) Support to implementation of green growth in Rwanda; (vii) support to early warning systems, recovery processes and capacity development in disaster risks reduction and management. The celebration of the 2016 World Environmental Day and National Environment Week coincides with the stepping up of preparations for the implementation, at global and national level, of the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in general, and the recently adopted Paris Conference Of Parties (COP 21) agreement on climate change in particular. UN will support the Government in aligning relevant strategies and programmes with these international climate change agreements. The writer is the One UN Rwanda Resident Coordinator

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The race to reinforce environmental protection, resilience to climate change