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Mountain Partnership’s ARCOS contributes to SOFO 2020 launch

27.05.2020

Forests, biodiversity and people were at the heart of the official launch of the State of the World’s Forests (SOFO) 2020 joint Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) event on Friday 22 May - the International Day for Biological Diversity.

The virtual event was opened by FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu and UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen. They introduced the important role that forests play as the habitat of the vast majority of known terrestrial plant and animal species, and how human actions can have many effects - positive and negative - on these ecosystems.

The high-level panel included the Ministers of Environment of Indonesia and Mauritania.

Mountain Partnership member Sam Kanyamibwa, Founder and Executive Director of the Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS), spoke at the panel, discussing the balance between conservation and forest resource needs to support livelihoods. Solutions to maintaining this balance are especially highlighted in the SOFO 2020 report.

Kanyamibwa gave insights on this topic from the ground in the Albertine Rift region in East Africa.

He states, “Mountain ecosystems are very important in terms of biodiversity, but at the same time, they are vulnerable … balancing conservation and development is very critical. Unfortunately, over the years, we have seen unbalance. We humans pool resources, benefitting from nature, but not paying back or taking care of nature.”

The solution, according to Kanyamibwa, is engaged collaboration: “We need to partner and work together to restore these degraded ecosystems. In fact, when humans are pooling resources, they do it individually - but we can’t act individually, we have to work together.”

Kanyamibwa gave the example of Rwanda, where the government’s cooperative approach has led to the country’s increased forest cover, which is now 30 percent.

ARCOS, established in 1995, is an NGO focused on the Albertine Rift region, promoting regional collaborative action. From 2014 to 2017, ARCOS represented the civil society electoral group in Sub-Saharan Africa on the Mountain Partnership Steering Committee.

Learn more about SOFO