King calls Katanga reforestation an example for the world | Royalty

The king and queen left the city behind on Saturday and drove an hour and a half through the savannah to Katanga, a village whose history dates back four hundred years. They were welcomed with traditional dances and took the time to chat with the population.

“You are the first Belgian king to visit Katanga,” said village chief Maman Monique. She talked about the problems facing the region. “Mining has completely disrupted the ecosystem. Due to the impoverishment of the soil and global warming, agriculture is yielding less.”

The region is known for its miombo forests, an alternation of twenty meter high trees with grassland, which covers the red soil. Before the settlers founded the city of Lubumbashi in 1910, the entire region was covered with miombo forest. Eighty percent of this has meanwhile been cleared, for the extraction of copper and charcoal, but also to make way for agriculture. 1 percent per year is still disappearing and that affects the whole world, because the forests remove millions of tons of CO2 from the air.

Belgium is therefore supporting a sustainable reforestation project through the Global Environment Facility (GEF). This takes into account the needs of the local population, who still have the opportunity to extract wood and charcoal from the forests. Ultimately, the local communities themselves will also be given responsibility for their piece of miombo forest. In this way, 210,000 hectares are already sustainably managed.

King Philippe called the approach an example for other countries in the fight against global warming. “We will never forget how warmly we were received here in this village that gave its name to the province,” concluded the king.