In a consultative meeting that took place at Heritage Hotel in Nyanza District, Minister of Natural Resources Stanislas KAMANZI told the participants that Rwanda should always be kept green and never be dry.

This meeting had brought together the Vice Mayors in charge of finance, Economy and Development, the staff in charge of land issues, staff in charge of environment in general and forests in particular from all the Districts of the Southern Province and the main objective of this meeting was to how the environment and forests particular should be protected to the maximum.

District Officers having forests in their attributions had time to present the current situation on how the environment and the forests in particular in their respective Districts.

Minister of Natural Resources(MINIRENA) Stanislas KAMANZI highlighted that the population should be sensitized on the importance of trees for their life and reminded the leaders that were in the meeting that there should be appropriate mechanisms of permanent monitoring on how trees are kept.

To underline the use of trees Minister Kamanzi said " trees are very useful for the country in terms of money, firewood, oxygen and told the participants in this meeting that this should taken serious. He said: " We are not allowed to fail."

Talking about " Rwanda Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative(RFLRI), Minister Stanislas KAMANZI called all the stakeholders in the protection of environment to join their efforts in insuring that the forests are protected wherever they are and always refer to the above mentioned Initiative which was put in place for the purpose of monitoring the forests. Here he highlighted that " The protection of forests is a National and obvious issue."

In this meeting, the District Officers in charge of forests and all the leaders that were in this meeting were reminded that they must own this program, to set up coordination mechanisms and permanent follow up.

The District Officers in charge of forests were asked to identify sites for planting trees especially at the open places like schools, In the resettlement sites, on the banks of rivers and lands.

In this meeting, Huye District was asked to put more efforts in planting more trees because there are still much open places that need to be covered.

To conclude the meeting, Minister Stanislas KAMANZI emphasized on the fact that the District Officers in charge of forests should be given a kit of tools that would enable them to fulfill their responsibilities.

Kinyarwanda version

Jean Paul BYIRINGIRO

Public Relations & Communication Officer

Southern Province