Bolivia Program to Plant 6 Million Trees Across Country
October 1, 2016 - telesurtv.net

Bolivia's My Tree program seeks to combat deforestation through a massive tree-planting push.

The Bolivian government announced Saturday a new campaign to replant 6 million trees across the country, as part of the "Mi Arbol," or "My Tree," program in Bolivia combating deforestation and climate change.

During the previous campaign run between October 2015 and March 2016, the government invested about US$2.8 million to plant the same amount of trees in a hundred of Bolivian towns, involving about 25,000 volunteers, the Minister of Environment and Water, Maria Rene Pinto said in a press conference.

Earlier this week, Bolivian President Evo Morales approved five decrees promoting the preservation, protection and sustainable use of natural resources.

The objective is to reforest 4 million of hectares by 2030, Pinto added.

The reforestation is meant to cut down on the country's greenhouse gas emissions in urban areas such as the capital of La Paz, but will also address deforestation and forest fires in the Amazon area. In other parts of the country, the trees will mitigate future flooding where headwater basins have been affected by erosion.

Between 2000 and 2010, Bolivia lost 1.8 million hectares of forest, the vast majority due to the expansion of mechanized agriculture. Illegal logging and deforestation is a major problem in the region, especially in Bolivia's neighboring countries of Brazil and Paraguay.

In Bolivia, however, things appear to be turning around. The Bolivian Tree Authority (ABT) said that deforestation was reduced by 64 percent between 2010 and 2013.