New improved tree seed varieties paving way for Rwanda to restore native species

Rwanda is taking bold steps to restore its native forests by introducing improved tree seed varieties, aiming to reverse decades of deforestation. In villages like Musange, where entire eucalyptus forests were cleared for settlements, new indigenous species are being planted to combat climate change and promote sustainable forestry. With a national tree-planting campaign in full swing, experts highlight the challenges of balancing reforestation with agricultural expansion. However, community engagement and innovative strategies like agroforestry are paving the way for a greener future.

In Musange, a village located in Huye, a district from Southern Rwanda, the entire eucalyptus forest was razed in 2018 to make space for small rural residential houses.

“People have been constantly cutting down trees looking for firewood,” recalls Jeanne Musaninkindi, a farmer from Mpare, a neighboring village located in the outskirts of Huye district.

Despite directives by local administrative officials to stop the illegal tree-cutting, across several remote rural villages like Musange, growing cases of fraudulent changes in land use leading to the deforestation have been reported whereby some members of local community are involved in clearing trees from their allotments so land could be cultivated and used for settlements.

Already, farmers in this remote rural village have felled all trees growing in surrounding area to create new agricultural spaces but Musaninkindi says the negative effects of deforestation are being felt.

Before, I was able to find my treatment there when I was ill. Now, there is no more forest and we are left to ourselves,” Musaninkindi told a visiting reporter.

With the ongoing national tree-planting campaign, Rwanda now seeks to replace its degraded forest resulting from charcoal production and firewood and increase the need for construction materials with new indigenous trees to combat climate change.

As now Rwanda braces itself for achieving the aspiration of building a green economy, a massive tree planting initiative has gained momentum across Rwanda with a target to plant 63 million indigenous and exotic tree seedlings in order to mitigate climate change.

Yet the initiative is getting traction among different stakeholders, Musaninkindi who had been actively participating in all the previous tree planting campaigns, said she would continue planting trees but now focusing on native species which have higher chances of growth.

By prioritizing native species in current restoration activities, the country has also established Tree Seed Centres in Gatsibo (East) and Huye (South).

However, some experts believe that despite the current restoration efforts to increase the availability of high-quality seeds, native trees are nice to put an end to the homogenization of the landscape, with exotic species, but still people need to change mindsets about their benefits.

“When compared to exotic species which are considered by the majority of farmers as being much profitable, most people don’t like changing their mind in adopting these indigenous trees,” Dr Athanase Mukuralinda, senior scientist and country representative for Rwanda for The Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) said of the current situation in Rwanda.

“For growing a good-quality indigenous tree which is healthy and free of diseases, it is important to have a high- quality seedling for these species,” Dr Mukuralinda points out.

The ongoing tree planting efforts with major focus on indigenous species, according to officials, aim to support Rwanda to achieve the forest landscape restoration target by bringing 2 million hectares– representing 82% of its land area under restoration by 2030.

Given Rwanda’s high population density and the importance of agriculture for the economy, conservation experts argue that agroforestry, the incorporation of trees into agricultural landscapes, is the most wide-reaching opportunity.

However residents from Musebeya, a small village nestled between rolling hills and large planted forests of Nyamagabe, a mountainous district in Southern Rwanda, — still prefer planting eucalyptus and grevillea trees as an energy source for producing charcoal and the situation was not expected to change soon.

“We still think about keep planting exotic tree species, because they are much more profitable by producing and selling charcoal” said 55-year-old farmer Venuste Mungwarakarama. “Do you think planting native species is a lucrative venture?” he poses.

Mungwarakarama said he hoped native tree species would be planted nearby, providing a much-needed boost to this impoverished rural area, where some homes stand abandoned by villagers who left looking for work elsewhere.

A plant is considered indigenous to an area if it naturally occurs there without human influence. Exotics, on the other hand, are plants that have been introduced from other parts of the world and often require extensive care to thrive.

Rwanda forests comprise mainly of plantations dominated by exotic species (Eucalyptus sp, Pinus sp, Grevillea robusta) and trees scattered on farmlands (agroforestry) and along anti-erosion ditches where wood remains the main source of domestic energy for more than 90 per cent of Rwandans.

Latest official statistics show that trees currently cover about 724,695 hectares of Rwanda’s surface area (30.4%), of which 387,425 hectares (53.5%) are plantations, 130,850 hectares (18.1%) are natural mountain rainforests, 161,843 hectares are wooded savannah (22.3%) and 43, 963 hectares are Shrubs (6.1%). Bamboo stand occupy only 613 hectares.

According to official projections, a total investment of $1.37 billion is needed by 2030 to achieve the government’s target of reducing charcoal use from 83 per cent to 42 per cent to reduce pressure on Rwanda’s forests.

Yet increasing forest coverage across different parts across Rwanda has brought tremendous changes to nearby villages in terms of food security and environment conservation while adopting indigenous trees, some experts say local opposition in some remote areas have hampered these efforts .

Conservation experts believe that despite achieved progress, Rwanda is a densely populated country with limited land resources. “This situation can pose challenges for reforestation efforts, especially when competing with agricultural expansion and urbanization along with income generating activities,” said Fidele Kabayiza, about the current reforestation efforts.

Kabayiza is the Director of the Non-Timber Forest Products Unit at the Government’s Rwanda Forestry Authority (RFA).

At its worst moment between 1990 and 2010, Rwanda lost an average of 5,850 ha or 1.84% per year. In total, between 1990 and 2010, Rwanda gained 10.7% of its forest cover. Latest official estimates show that forests account 30.4% percent of the country’s 26,338 square kilometers, with almost 13 million inhabitants.

“Rwanda, in particular, faces the critical challenge of its population continuing to grow at a rapid rate while natural resources, arable, forest lands become increasingly scarce and degraded,” Kabayiza said.

Jacqueline Mukanoheli, a smallholder farmer from Bugesera, a district from Eastern Rwanda says there is limited awareness for farmers to change mindsets to replace exotic species with native trees because there is a lack of motivation.

“Members of local community can easily make money by selling wood and charcoal from these exotic species they are still reluctant to adopt indigenous take which normally take longer to grow,” she said.

As part of efforts to increase forest cover,  Rwanda is implementing implementing a number of strategies including the latest campaign dedicated to plant 63 million indigenous and exotic tree seedlings to be able to sell carbon credits on the carbon market.

One the major activities focuses not only on both tree planting but also on landscape restoration such as terrace farming, controlling soil erosion and promoting agroforestry practices.

“Community participation and engagement in reforestation projects has been key during various tree planting initiatives,” said Kabayiza.

The tree planting is part of National Agroforestry Strategy that aims at engaging local communities such as farmers, private and public institutions and many different Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) to adopt practices of landscape management such as the afforestation and reforestation.

Despite a challenge to ensure the long-term sustainability of reforestation efforts which requires ongoing maintenance and management, Rwandan officials emphasize the need to promote agroforestry practices, which integrate trees into agricultural landscapes.

One of these is the Right Tree, Right Place – Seed, a regional initiative that seeks to supply high-quality seeds and seedlings of native tree species to scale up landscape restoration in several countries across sub-Saharan Africa including Rwanda.

The initiative which is jointly carried out by various stakeholders seek especially to rely on local initiatives such as Umuganda, a monthly community work program in Rwanda where citizens participate in various activities, including tree planting.

During the implementation phase, the Center for International Forestry Research (ICRAF/CIFOR)  will engage various actors in the  implementation of various measures such as providing incentives for tree planting and promoting community participation in tree-planting programs.

Due to limited capacity and resources to ensure maintenance, management, and protection of restored forests, especially in rural areas, experts are convinced that local community’s involvement in   tree planting activities such as agroforestry and other community-managed forests is crucial.

For example, one of the approaches involving a group of neighboring small woodlots, totaling between 20 and 100 hectares in Rwanda has brought together land owners in cooperatives with a mission to restore and sustainably manage their forests in accordance with an approved plan.

Through the initiative dubbed “Rwanda Forest Management Support Project (PAFOR, French acronym) the Rwandan government, local communities, and various organizations participated in restoring degraded forest landscapes in Rwanda through sustainable tree-planting practices.

In order to address the needs for preserving forest resources, the initiative seeks to satisfy the needs of forest area dwellers in forest products and improve their income through income-generating activities compatible with forest resource management.

This is because land shortage due to high population density (crude density of more than 400 inhabitants per square kilometers) as well as degraded soils are considered by experts as one of the factors deepening poverty among rural dwellers who, in search of alternative income, overexploit natural forests and forest plantations for domestic and commercial purposes.

“Growing trees requires some maintenance including planting new and removing dead ones (…) but one major challenge is that this practice is never applied in the management of existing forests owned by the government and other entities in Rwanda,” Dr Mukuralinda told us in an exclusive interview.

Some existing initiatives such as agroforestry and community-managed forests are being managed by local communities who are often involved in tree planting activities and management

Collecting seeds, distributing seedlings

Due to efforts aimed to protect existing forests and reforestation, Rwanda has established tree centres to serve  as a one-stop-shop for tree seed supply activities including, tree improvement, genetic conservation, as well as seed collection, processing and distribution.

The centres have helped to propagate native tree planting and finding sustainable solutions where farmers lead in the community initiatives.

“Sometimes these farmers feel these [native tree seeds] are not right species they want,” said Providence Mujawamariya, Research Assistant at CIFOR-ICRAF Rwanda. This is because, the majority of villagers believe that planting exotic species – like eucalyptus – is another way they can make money from trees.

Beth Kaplin, Director of the Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resource Management at the University of Rwanda, says it is important to distinguish between forest made up of non-native trees and forests composed of native trees which have evolved and adapted to the Rwandan context.

For example, Kaplin points out that Rwanda never had plantations of eucalyptus and pine until natural vegetation was cleared and those exotic species were planted.

So far, the Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resources Management at the University of Rwanda has identified 29 indigenous species that can help guide tree planting in the appropriate locations to restore ecosystems and the advantages and services we receive from them in Rwanda.

The Rwanda Forest Authority predicts that the country will plant 4.9 million fruit trees, 6.7 million ornamental trees, 273,590 bamboo trees, 34.2 million agro-forestry trees, and 16.5 million trees in general for different purposes.

According to researchers, forest restoration with native goals should also be underpinned by evidence of what the ecosystem was before transformation through loss of tree cover.

“This is an important step to avoid randomly planting trees of any species anywhere without a framework and ecological guidance, and this also adheres to the “Right Tree, Right Place” approach to tree planting,” she said.

The latest Spatial Biodiversity Assessment   completed by the Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resource Management at University of Rwanda, has identified 29 ecosystem types of native species with expert input, and carried out an IUCN ecosystem Red List process to indicate which ecosystems are threatened and endangered.

“One of the main challenges in stakeholder engagement is the lack of clarity around whether forest restoration should include non-native and even well-known invasive species that continue to be planted in Rwanda,” she told us.

Community participation and stewardship of restoration

Both Kaplin and Mukuralinda believe that “It is possible to get the right native trees in the right place and for the right purpose.’’

Researchers are convinced that for achieving success, local communities, seed centres, scientists, non-governmental organizations, businesses, governments, and international organizations all need to be actively involved.

While subsidies for the planting of native tree plantations is described as an important factor to propagate new species, Mukuralinda points out that ecological guidance is critical in order to avoid planting randomly trees of any species without a clear framework.

“Matching the right tree to the right place benefits both the tree and owner,” he said.

Currently experts emphasize the need for a shift so that the country ends the homogenization of the landscape, where all riparian zones should not be all one tree species, like it is the case today across different remote rural parts of Rwanda.

“We need to have these native trees scattered around the Rwandan landscape to maximize nature’s contributions to people,” Kaplin said.

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