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Kinyarwanda
Police officers attached to the District Police Unit of Musanze, on Wednesday, conducted Umuganda where they planted over 500 trees in Muhoza Sector.
The officers also cleared bushes in the four-hectare forest, which is one of the 400 hectares of forests that were planted by Rwanda National Police (RNP) in different parts of the country.
The tree planting exercise in Musanze is part of the implementation of the agreement signed last year between RNP and the Ministry of Forestry to jointly partner to protect, conserve and develop lands and forestry.
The District Police Commander of Musanze, Supt. Aphrodice Gashumba said the exercise will continue in other parts of the district.
“We will continue the exercise in partnership with different groups of the public including motorcyclists, cyclists, members of youth volunteers in community policing as well as local leaders,” he said.
Supt. Gashumba also called upon the residents to protect the environment by reporting people who cut trees illegally, especially in gazetted or protected forests.
Rwanda National Police (RNP) together with its partners plans to plant at least 50, 763 of trees across the country in the next two years as part of the implementation of the national afforestation programme.
About 45, 803 hectares will constitute the agro-forestry land while 4, 960 others will be on hilly and other forestry gazetted areas.
About 14, 744 hectares will be planted in the Eastern Province; 8, 415 hectares in the Northern; 9, 484 hectares in Western; 26035 hectares in Southern; and 2, 085 in the City of Kigali.
As of the end of last year, only 704, 997 hectares of trees had been covered, representing only 29.6 percent of the total land allocated to forests in the country. Of this, majority 68 percent are manmade forests owned by people while national forests account for only 27 percent.
