By REBECCA MUSHOTA –
ZAMBIA is losing about 300,000 hectares of forests every year due to unsustainable agriculture and timber production, Vice-President Inonge Wina has said.
Ms Wina said other factors contributing to the problem were unsustainable land use practices, infrastructure development and mining.

. Wina

Ms Wina was speaking in Lusaka yesterday at the high level dialogue meeting on the national strategy to reduce deforestation and forest degradation.
The meeting was attended by representatives from the World Bank, United Nations (UN) agencies, Finnish and Swedish embassies, and the ministries of Lands, Agriculture and Mines.
Ms Wina said it was because of the fast rate of deforestation and forest degradation in Zambia that Government had come up with various nmeasures to preserve forests through promotion of sustainable usage.
Government participated in the pilot project of the UN collaborative nprogramme on Reducing Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD). Ms Wina said the programme enabled Zambia come up with the national nstrategy to reduce deforestation.
“A number of milestones that support effective implementation of the nstrategy to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation have been achieved.
“These include Cabinet’s approval of the National Forestry policy in n2014 and Cabinet’s approval of the Forests Bill to be tabled in nParliament in June 2015,” she said.
Ms Wina said Government would provide leadership and financing to nensure that the REDD programme achieved its goals of reducing ndeforestation and ensure people’s aspirations were taken into nconsideration while promoting sustainable use of forests.
UN Resident coordinator Janet Rogan said the REDD programme gave an nopportunity to Zambia to address the challenges brought on by deforestation.
Ms Rogan said Zambia had immense natural resources that were however nin danger of depletion because of deforestation and forest degradation.
She said there was need to include climate policies in the national policies.