UN ecology project aims to fight poverty, generate income in three countries

Seeking to combat land degradation, poverty and unemployment with a single blow, a United Nations body signed an agreement with Italy today for three reforestation pilot projects in Argentina, China and Mozambique, targeting job creation for youth while enhancing the environment.

The projects are being implemented in areas where they can address at the same time the issues of poverty, income generation, land degradation, storage of carbon dioxide and loss of biodiversity, the Secretariat of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) said in Bonn, Germany.

In northern Argentina, about 240 youth with varying degrees of education will be trained in 12 locations of the Santiago del Estero Province to develop reforestation and afforestation aimed at restoring degraded land and reducing the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Much of the province suffers from land degradation due to heavy agricultural use, overgrazing and clearing of natural forests. It is also one of the poorest and least developed areas in the country. Of the 800,000 inhabitants, 46.4 per cent are below age 19 and 71.5 per cent live below the poverty line. The planting of trees will not only help rehabilitate the environment, but create jobs and enhance the potential for non-wood forest products such as fruits for income-generation.

In Aohan County in Inner Mongolia, China, young people will plant 3,000 hectares of trees in the most severely degraded land of the county.

In Mozambique, which suffers from a decline in vegetation cover in sloped lands, resulting in increased water runoff, loss of soil fertility and damages downstream, a Youth Forest Pilot Project in Maputo province will establish forest plantations through nurseries and production of seedlings. Some 3,000 thousand hectares of trees will be planted in areas where there is high exploitation of forests because of charcoal production and forest fires, resulting in land degradation.

The three projects are financed by the Italian Ministry for the Environment and Territory. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) will be the implementing agency. The University of La Tuscia in Viterbo, Italy, will provide capacity building and training activities to various stakeholders. Their duration is between three to five years.