Nairobi, Kenya | The Bezos Earth Fund has announces $22.8 million to accelerate the restoration of two African landscapes critical for carbon sequestration, biodiversity and human wellbeing: the Greater Rift Valley in Kenya and the Lake Kivu and Rusizi River Basin in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.
Bezos Earth Fund President and CEO Andrew Steer announced this funding at the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, Kenya September 5.
His announcement followed remarks by Rachel Ruto, First Lady of Kenya, and Dr. Dorcas Rigathi, Second Lady of Kenya, emphasizing restoration’s vital role in empowering the most vulnerable people to transform their landscapes and livelihoods.
First Lady Ruto announced a bold vision to mobilize African First Ladies as champions of grassroots, women-led restoration across the continent.
The funding is part of the Earth Fund’s $1 billion commitment to landscape restoration globally. It also adds to the $42.2 million granted previously to accelerate Africa’s restoration movement, known as AFR100, and complements recent funding from The Audacious Project and Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI).
“Africa is home to the world’s largest restoration opportunity and is a critical player in the global fight against climate change, nature loss, and poverty,” said Dr. Steer. “Thirty-four African countries have put forward an ambitious vision to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. With these grants we are proud to support the next generation of African institutions that are at the heart of the continent’s restoration movement and begin the vital work of leveraging philanthropy into private investment in restoration.”
The grants, which are still in process, will enable the restoration of 600,000 hectares of degraded land in the Greater Rift Valley, home to Kenya’s water towers and a breadbasket for the region, and the Lake Kivu and Rusizi River Basin, part of the second-largest rainforest in the world and home to five million people. Restoration at this scale can sequester 42 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2050, the equivalent of taking more than 9.3 million gasoline-powered vehicles off the road per year. The grants will,
source: PRNewswire
