Ivory Coast aims to raise $1.5 billion to restore forests, land
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Loading... - Pelagie Essono
- 31 Aug 2022
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Ivory Coast aims to raise $1.5 billion for a five-year land restoration programme to bring back forest and increase food production, President Alassanne Ouattara said on Monday at the start of a United Nations conference on desertification.
The world's top cocoa producer lost 80% of its forests between 1900 and 2021, and risks losing them all by 2050 if the pace of decline continues, Ouattara said at the opening ceremony of the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) in the financial capital Abidjan.
He did not specify whom he hoped would provide the money, but called on the private sector to help fund a separate ongoing $1 billion government project to restore three million hectares of forest by 2030.
The new five-year "Abidjan Legacy Programme" will use technologies such as tree-planting drones and drought-resistant plant varieties to repair degraded land.
It will also boost rural employment and increase food production in a country that has lost millions of hectares of forest and arable land to cocoa fields. Read More...
