Press Release Detail

The Ministry of Forestry recently conducted a significant Budget Planning Meeting for the 2024-2025 financial year, focusing on the Reforestation of Degraded Forest (RDF) Programme. Held on July 11th and 12th, the workshop was a pivotal initiative aimed at addressing emerging issues, discussing challenges, sharing lessons learned and charting the way forward for the RDF projects.

This workshop was the second of its kind since the RDF Programme's inception in 2015, with the previous one held in 2019. Participants included division-based officers, RDF project officers, and officers from the Research, Planning, and Forest Resource Assessment & Conservation (FRAC) Division. The Ministry of Finance also took part, presenting a detailed breakdown of activities for the approved project budget.

The RDF Programme, aims to initiate tree planting on degraded forests to improve Fiji's forest cover by 2% by 2030. Since 2019, the ambitious goal of planting 30 million trees in 15 years has seen remarkable progress, with over 19 million trees already planted. This includes contributions from private forest plantations managed by Fiji Pine Limited and Fiji Hardwood Corporation Limited.

For the upcoming financial year, the Fijian Government has allocated an additional $2.5 million to support RDF projects. During the two-day workshop, the Ministry's operations divisions worked on their work plans and activities to effectively utilize this funding.

A key focus of the workshop was the introduction and discussion of the Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) guidelines and planting manual, essential resources for the technical officers. These tools are expected to enhance the implementation and monitoring of reforestation efforts, ensuring the success of the RDF projects.

The Ministry of Forestry remains committed to its reforestation goals and looks forward to continued collaboration with all stakeholders to achieve a greener and more sustainable Fiji.

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