Tue, 20 Jun 2017 13:48:13 +0000
BY CHIKUMBI KATEBE
ZAMBIA loses over 300,000 square kilometres of forests every year due to indiscriminate cutting down of trees, says Water Development, Environment and Sanitation minister, Llody Kaziya.
Mr Kaziya said charcoal burning has become a major cause of high deforestation in Zambia which has adverse effects on climate change.
He said there was need to devise methods of educating people against the effects of indiscriminate cutting of trees which has long term effects.
He said this on his arrival at Bole International Airport from Gabon in transit to Lusaka.
Mr Kaziya said the Ministry of Education should begin to package specific educational messages into the school curriculum so that young people grew up with the culture of not wanting to cut down trees indiscriminately.
This is contained in a press statement issued by the first secretary of press and tourism in Addis Ababa, In’utu Mwanza.
She explained that Mr Kaziya was concerned with the growing scourge of deforestation as it had negative effects on the environment and the climate.
Mr Kaziya said his ministry world engage the Ministry of Agriculture to help reduce agriculture activities along river basins as well as avoid settlements along river beds.
“He cited the drying of Chongwe river as a problem that had been created by people living along the riverbank.
“He said he would collaborate with his counterpart from the Ministry of Agriculture to ensure that people were not allocated land in wetlands which were sources of water,” Ms Mwanza said.
Mr Kaziya was in Gabon to attend the African ministerial conference on the environment where he lobbied the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to support programmes meant to improve land conservation and proper water sanitation in Zambia.
He said some of the challenges the country was facing, including persistent droughts, were as a result of effects of climate change, as a result of high deforestation, adding that governments have been challenged to increase investments into sanitation and water development in all member states.
