Forest plays an important role in climate regulation and carbon sequestration. Thus, the importance of forests cannot be underestimated. Human beings are dependent on forests for survival due to basic needs range from the air they breathe to fire wood they use. Besides providing habitats for animals and livelihoods for humans, forests also offer watershed protection, prevent soil erosion and mitigate climate change.
Forests provide human being a large number of commercial goods which include timber, firewood, pulpwood, food items, gum, resins, non-edible oils, rubber, fibers, bamboo canes, fodder, medicine, drugs and many more items. Half of the timber cut each year is used as fuel for heating and cooking.
To support the advantage of forest for sustainable development, recently Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed presided over a presentation by the Minister of Agriculture which reviewed the National Green Legacy Initiative and the preparations for planting seedlings this year. Key stakeholders included national steering committee members, technical committee members, regional presidents and influential personalities that will be engaged in public mobilization.
Citing key success factors from last year’s planting season as great public mobilization, active engagement of government leadership, institutional coordination and stakeholders’ participation, the need to build on these good experiences was indicated. While the target for this year is to plant 5 billion trees, a preparation to ready the required number of seedlings has been underway since the end of last year’s planting season.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed emphasized the importance of continuity and finishing what has been started, indicating the Green Legacy Initiative overall goal of planting 20 billion trees within the next few years.
In addition, the Environment, Forest and Climate Change Commission (EFCCC) has held an “online” meeting recently aimed at assessing the sector’s activities and providing guidance on future activities.
The meeting was held by the Environment, Forest and Climate Change Commission with regional and regulatory agencies to review the existing status of the sector and focus on subsequent issues.
The Commission’s Commissioner, Professor Fekadu Beyene told participants in an online discussion that the purpose of the discussion was to “ensure the success of the sector in the project, especially through the use of information technology and to lead on existing and ongoing operations.”
The Commissioner on his briefing discussed various institutional issues, and particularly focused on: the ways in which the formal operations of the sector can be achieved without interruption, and on issues related to the evaluation, monitoring and support of operations.
In his presentation, the commissioner explained about various institutional issues and particularly focused on: the sector’s regular activities that are about to be achieved without interruption and issues related to performance evaluation, monitoring and support. In order to offset the negative impacts of the sector’s activities, COVID-19 response Plan has been prepared at the Commission level and the regional and regulatory agencies adopted the plan and applied it that could be put into action in relation to their existing situation.
Celebration plans for the World Environment Day to be held on 5 June, 2020, under the theme “Environmental Sustainability for Sustainable Biodiversity,” are underway and Preparation works to be taken into consideration for the Green Legacy work being carried out on the current National Green Legacy and how to take the lead in coordination with other sectors in the preparation work being done.
Much of the work discussed is the importance of community mobilization as a strategic support. Based on the extensive presentation, some of the officials provided annotations on their own work and gave guidance on the questions and follow-up directions of the participants.
Meanwhile, the UN’s environment chief, Engineer Andersen and other environmental experts said: “While the origin of the outbreak and its transmission pathway are yet to be asserted, we know diseases passed from animals to humans (zoonotic diseases) are on the rise, as the world continues to see unprecedented destruction of wild habitats by human activity. Nature is sending us a message with the corona virus pandemic and the ongoing climate crisis.”
Various researches show that the positive and negative indirect effects of COVID-19 on the environment, particularly in the most affected countries such as China, USA, Italy, and Spain. There is a significant correlation between contingency measures and improvement in air quality, clean beaches and environmental noise reduction. On the other hand, there are also negative secondary aspects such as the reduction in recycling and the increase in waste, further endangering the contamination of physical spaces (water and land), in addition to air. Global economic activity is expected to return in the coming months in most countries (even if slowly), so decreasing GHG concentrations during a short period is not a sustainable way to clean up our environment.
Studies estimated a positive indirect impact on the environment. According to Global Carbon Project, climate experts predict that Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions could drop to proportions never seen before since World War II. This outcome is mainly due to the social distancing policies adopted by the governments.
For example, in Hubei province (China), strong social distancing measures were implemented in late 2019. These measures affected the country’s main economic activities. As a result, power plants and industrial facilities halted their production. Also, the use of vehicles decreased considerably. All this led to a dramatic reduction in the concentrations of Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) and Particulate Matter that have a diameter of less than 2.5 pm (PM 2.5) in the main Chinese cities.
In other parts of the world, such as Europe, air pollution has dramatically reduced since governments ordered citizens to stay at home to contain the spread of the new corona virus. Main industries as well as other regular activities have ground to a halt. For instance, car use has reduced which caused GHGs to decrease.
According to BBC report the other is quite simply making discussion around climate more difficult as mass events are postponed. Greta Thunberg has urged for digital activism to take the place of physical protests due to the corona virus outbreak, while the biggest climate event of the year, COP26, is currently still scheduled to be held in the coming November.
COP26 is expected to draw 30,000 delegates from around the world. The conference organizers are still working towards hosting the event in Glasgow, a COP26 spokesperson said they are in frequent contact with the UN and the current COP president in Chile, among other partners.
There may be another way that the behavioral changes taking place around the world could carry over beyond the current corona virus pandemic.
“We know from social science research that interventions are more effective if they take place during moments of change,” said Nicholas.
A 2018 study led by Corinne Moser at Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland found that when people were unable to drive and given free e-bike access instead, they drove much less when they eventually got their car back. While a study in 2001 led by Satoshi Fujii at Kyoto University in Japan found that when a motorway closed, forcing drivers to use public transit, the same thing happened when the road reopened. People who had formerly been committed drivers travelled by public transport more frequently. During the corona virus outbreak, habits those are coincidentally good for the climate might be travelling less or, perhaps, cutting down on food waste as people experience shortages due to stockpiling.
A global pandemic that is claiming people’s lives certainly shouldn’t be seen as a way of bringing about environmental change either. For one thing, it’s far from certain how lasting this dip in emissions will be. When the pandemic eventually subsides, will carbon and pollutant emissions “bounce back” so much that it will be as if this clear-skied interlude never happened? Or could the changes being seen today have a more persistent effect?
“The first thing to consider,” said Kimberly Nicholas, a sustainability science researcher at Lund University in Sweden, “is the different reasons that emissions have dropped. Take transport, for example, which makes up 23 percent of global carbon emissions. These emissions have fallen in the short term in countries where public health measures, such as keeping people in their homes, have cut unnecessary travel.”
Driving and aviation are key contributors to emissions from transport, contributing 72 percent and 11 percent of the transport sector’s greenhouse gas emissions respectively, learnt from BBC.
The Ethiopian Herald May 26, 2020
BY ESSEYE MENGISTE
