The government of Sierra Leone and development partners have on Thursday March 18, 2021, launched a five-year (2021-2025) Strategic Plan for the Conservation Trust Fund of Sierra Leone.
Vice President Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh said that the launching of the strategic plan is a demonstration of the commitment by the government on environmental issues.
He said that the Government of Sierra Leone takes environmental issues very seriously, adding that the trust was established with the object to guide government to generate the necessary resources it needed and to provide oversight on protected areas and national parks.
Dr. Jalloh cited that trust fund would also enable government to focus its objective in generating resources to support nationwide conservation programmes.
He noted that the strategic plan simply means that the Minister of Environment would operationalize how they should go about to get the Trust Fund functional and build the required partnership that would enable them to do their work.
The Conservation Trust Fund, together with the National Protected Area Authority, was established in 2012 to promote the conservation of biodiversity, and at the same time improve the sustainable use of natural resources and the overall environmental management in the National Parks and Protected Areas.
The Head of the European Delegation to Sierra Leone, Tom Vens said that everyone is aware that the economy of Sierra Leone is almost entirely dependent on its natural resources, and that the vast majority of the population rely on the exploitation of land and marine resources for employment, income generation and food production.
“It is therefore crucial that the natural capital is preserved in order for Sierra Leone to continue receiving the ecosystem services, such as clean water, clean air and a sustainable supply of food and energy, which make our life and the life of future generations possible,” Amb.Vens said.
He cited that it does not require a great deal of imagination to understand the effect on the supply of drinkable water to Freetown from the Gumadam noting that the deforestation in the Western Area Peninsula National Park should not continue to be unchecked.
“There is also increasing evidence that balanced and sustainable ecosystems are essential to improve the resilience of the population to the adverse effects of climate change. The effect of rising sea levels on the coastal communities of Sierra Leone could be catastrophic, should the destruction of the mangrove forests continue at the same rate we are experiencing today,” Vens said.
Vens mentioned that Sierra Leone has approximately 600,000 hectares of land designated as National Park or other forms of protected areas, adding that this is a remarkable 9% of the total land area of the country.
Vens added the Tree Cover index for Sierra Leone has sharply decreased over the past years, and that in 2018, the Director of Environment informed the public that less than 5% of the original forests is left in the country, mainly in isolated reserves on top of mountains and hillside.
“The forest cover is a direct indicator of the health status of natural landscapes, and a good proxy indicator of the human management of ecosystems,” Vens said .
One of the EU’s first contributions to environmental protection in Sierra Leone was made several years ago to what today has become the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary, followed by a project for the Gola Forest in 2007.
More recently, we provided institutional support to the Environmental Protection Agency, to the National Protected Areas Authority and the Forestry Division in the Ministry of Agriculture. We also supported the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and forest degradation programme, also called REDD+.
He said that the EU support to the Tacugama sanctuary and the Gola National Park could be considered as success stories that provide a model for elsewhere. He said that the Gola National Park is probably the first and only initiative in Sierra Leone that is still able to raise funds from its ecosystem services by selling carbon credits to the market.
By George M.O.Williams
22/03/2021. ISSUE NO: 8025