Plans To Restore The Rainforest
Basseterre, St. Kitts, 20th March, 2023 (ZIZ Newsroom): In recognition of International Day of Forests on Tuesday, March 21, the Ministry of Environment will be undertaking projects to restore and revive areas of the tropical rain forest.
Forestry Officer in the Ministry of Environment, Dr. Eric Browne told ZIZ News that due to the impact of human beings some areas of the forest are degraded and need to be restored.
“There are some projects that are ongoing. And among those are activities planned for restoration, where we want to restore these areas that have experienced degradation. We want to bring it back to its functionality, in terms of ecological functionality, we want to make sure it comes back to the social as well as the economical functionality that it once had; and make it a vibrant ecosystem to the benefit of our people,” he said.
He said in some cases the degradation has gotten so bad that those areas require reforestation.
“Reforestation, this is where you have taken away the vegetation, the trees completely and we want to restore these trees for the benefit of what these trees will do,” he said. “We’re talking about the fringe of the forest and especially along the ghauts and areas of our coastline where the vegetation has been lost in many areas or been badly degraded. And so, these projects are geared towards that.”
According to Dr. Browne other activities to observe International Day of the Forests include enhancing hiking trails with new and improved signage and other additions to make hiking a safer, more enjoyable experience
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