Mozambique hopes that the International Conference on the Miombo Forest, which has been taking place since yesterday, Tuesday (16), in Washington, United States of America (USA), will result in the allocation of more resources by the partners so that the actions listed in the Maputo Declaration can be implemented.

This optimism was expressed by the Minister for Land and Environment, Ivete Maibaze, on the eve of the start of the Washington Conference, which, in addition to representatives of the governments of the ten SADC countries that signed the Maputo Declaration, also includes the Republic of Congo, members of the US Congress, African parliamentarians, financial institutions, the private sector, partner agencies and philanthropists, among others.

The Miombo woodland occupies around 2.7 million square kilometers in southern and central Africa, supporting more than 300 million families in the SADC. In Mozambique, the Zambezi basin is home to most of this vegetation, placing the country in second place after Tanzania.

Maibaze recognizes that, like many forests in the world, the Miombo is also suffering devastation, which is why the August 2022 conference in Maputo served to raise awareness among member states to help stop its destruction.

Quoted by the newspaper NewsIn her opinion, it was because of this initiative that the signatories of the Maputo Declaration gave the Mozambican head of state a leading role in mobilizing resources for integrated forest management.

"Overall, the region needs 550 million dollars for conservation actions, but so far Mozambique has obtained around 154 million, 125 of which are earmarked for climate resilience actions in the SADC," the publication reads.