Rwanda has won Future Policy Award 2011 owing to the National Forest Policy that was introduced in 2004 and reviewed in 20110, thus becoming the world’s most distinguished and innovative forest policy.
The United Nations-backed awards were announced September 21 by the World Future Council (WFC) at the UN Headquarters in New York, USA.
Rwanda’s forest policy became the best of the three winning policies that focus and contribute to the conservation and sustainable development of forests which benefits present and future generations.
WFC Director Alexandra Wandel said while announcing the gold medal for the country’s national forest policy that: “Despite the genocide and continuing population and land pressures, Rwanda is one of only three countries in Central and Western Africa to achieve a major reversal in the trend of declining forest cover and is on course to achieving its goal of forest cover of 30 per cent of total land area by the year 2020.
“The Government of Rwanda has taken a lead in developing visionary forest policy but also bio-diversity conservation, ecotourism and green jobs.”Wandel stressed.
The event brought the former United States track and field star Carl Lewis, a nine-time Olympic gold winner and now UN Goodwill Ambassador.
The event also brought Mr. Lewis, a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) who in his sporting career won 10 Olympic medals, nine of them gold, and 10 World Championships medals, eight of them gold.
In his remarks he said, “I kind of know about awards, I’ve had a few myself and I think it’s much more important that we talk about this award because it affects everyone.
“It talks about reforestation and overcoming hunger. So I’m delighted to make the Future Policy Award more well-known and to carry out some of the inspiriting energy of the Olympic spirit that I’ve had in the past” said Lewis.
The Director of the Secretariat of the UN Forum on Forests, Jan McAlpine, illustrated that the awards come ‘at a really critical time’ because of the slump in the economy, the needs of dealing with development goals and the complexity of dealing with natural resources and adverse impact of unsustainable exploitation on climate, biodiversity and livelihoods.
The annual awards celebrate policies that create better living conditions for current and future generations, and seek to raise global awareness and speed up action towards just, sustainable and peaceful societies.
This year’s topic was forests, with 16 entries from 20 countries, and the announcements took place under the sponsorship of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Forest cover has increased by 37 per cent since 1990, massive reforestation and planting that promote indigenous species and involve the local population have been undertaken, and new measures such as agro-forestry and education have been implemented.
One silver award went to the US Lacey Act amendment of 2008 which prohibits all trade in wood and plant products that are knowingly illegally sourced from a US state or any foreign country, forcing importers to take responsibility for their wood products.
The second silver went to Gambia’s Community Forestry Policy, put in place with FAO support, the first in Africa to provide local populations with secure and permanent forest ownership rights.
Transferring forest tenure from state ownership to management by local communities enables them to reduce illegal logging and forest fires, slow desertification and benefit from the forest products.
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