By Nyima Sillah
The Ecosystem based Adaption (EBA) project Management Unit in Partnership with The World Agroforestry organized a two-day National Policy Discourse on Minimum Tree Cover on Farms in The Gambia, the conference was held in a local hotel in Kairaba.
The EBA project in the Gambia is currently being implemented in the Gambia with funding from the Green Climate Fund, among the key targets of the project is to restore degraded agricultural landscapes such that communities could generate direct and indirect benefits from them.
And the forum was aimed to create awareness about benefits of trees to poverty reduction, improving livelihood, climate resilience and to design effective support delivery pathways for local actors to support communities in implementing the minimum tree cover.
Dr Peter Minang, Global Science Advisor of ICRAF and CIFOR also said, the Gambia is currently sixteen in the world in cashew production with 0.1% of the global cashew market which is worth of $40million annually noting that, Cashew is very adapted to the condition we have in the Gambia if we only “we clean it and package it we will double the income of cashew to $80million”, he said.
Minang also said Livestock is extremely important “Cattles are 5% of the Gambians GDP and if you take the agriculture side, it is 25% of the total national annual agricultural GDP. 60% of 40% household in the Gambia have cattle’s, 38% have sheep’s and almost 60% have goats which is extremely important in the economic growth of the country”
Minister of Environment, Climate Change and Natural Resources (MECCNAR) Dr Lamin Sanyang said: their plans this 2020 is, they wanted to make a difference in the landscape of the Gambia and that cannot be without introducing innovation and this is one the innovative ways of addressing land declaration and also helping community to support themselves.
Adding that this year they task themselves to the department of forestry to plant over 1million trees over the country with key stakeholders like agriculture, ministry of local government and all other key ministries noting that, the first lady is also their environment ambassador and she is ready to go with them in planting 1million trees.
According to him, In 2018 they came natural resource policy which was validated and the core of the policy is to ensure that, we use our natural resources base in a most sustainable manner and also ensure that we add value to what we have to ensure that our people ripe the economic benefits of their labor and from their natural environment.
Speaking at the forum Technical Adviser of MECCNAR and EBA Project Manager Dr Malanding S Jaiteh said: the discussion of the forum will be based on how to understand the rule trees and how they can come with the ideas that the government can follow.