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Government has conserved over 200,000 hectares of forests in Rufunsa District of Lusaka Province, as a mitigation and adaptation measure against climate change.
Rufunsa District Department of Agriculture Officer, Clementina Mwape Sinkala, also said government was promoting indigenous crops because they are climate resilient.
Sinkala said this at a Climate Action Training workshop organised by Centre for Environment Justice (CEJ) which was implementing a project dubbed “Strengthening Civil Society Voices for Climate Advocacy in Zambia” implemented in five districts.
She said promotion of indigenous crops because they were climate resilient was being done through Zambia Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI) and an NGO Community Technology Development Trust (CTDT).
“Government has further intensified early warning systems by setting up traps for fruit flies and moths to help in warning farmers about possible dangers to their fields regarding fall army worms,” Sinkala said.
She said the Ministry of Agriculture had trained Environmental and Social Safeguard Committees in various camps in Rufunsa District to operate as development watchdogs on Environmental Protection and development in general.
Sinkala said the Ministry of Agriculture had further trained farmers in smart agriculture technologies which includes conservation, agroforestry and curbing post harvest losses.
“Government is also training people in alternative livelihoods to enable farmers to keep livestock to avoid dependence on rainfed agriculture. Farmers have been trained in beekeeping to avoid cutting trees. The Department of Forestry in the District has nursery trees which they give to promote afforestation,” she said.
CEJ Executive Director, Maggie Mwape, said her organisation was simply complementing government efforts as custodians of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) which are important documents to respond to Climate Change.
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Mwape said the success of NAP processes and NDCs implementation in the country hinged on the participation of several stakeholders including the Civil society movement.
She said the transformative initiative aimed to empower Civil Society Organizations in Zambia to play a pivotal role in advocating for climate action and environmental sustainability.
“It is for this reason that CEJ is building the capacity of CSOs in climate adaptation and implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions,” Mwape said.
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