Nairobi:In his opening address at the 2nd World Congress, jointly hosted by the World Agroforestry Centre and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Achim Steiner, the United Nations Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of UNEP,

highlighted the importance of the upcoming Copenhagen Conference for Africa.

His remarks came the day before Kenya’s finance minister announced on Tuesday that up to 10 million Kenyans are currently at risk of severe food shortages and they have to import food urgently.

The climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December have a big role to play for the short-term survival and long-term development of the continent as a whole.

"The world is looking as never before for solutions let’s put them on the table and in the in-trays of the policymakers in the run up to Copenhagen and beyond",Mr. Steiner said.

During the week long meeting, the World Agroforestry Centre and UNEP are doing just that. Dennis Garrity, the Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre, highlighted some the Centre’s most recent research, which is designed to increase maize production in Africa by planting trees that act as organic fertilizers.

"We have evidence of how maize yields have doubled and tripled for smallholders, without an overall increase in labour or the need to apply nitrogen fertilizers".

Dennis Garrity presented delegates with a World Agricultural Centre publication entitled "Creating an Evergreen Agriculture in Africa".The publication highlights two successful case studies, carried out with support from the governments of Zambia and Malawi, which support the thesis that the right trees planted in the right areas increase food yields and soil fertility without the need of importing fertilizers.

At a press conference on Monday, founder of the Greenbelt Movement and Nobel Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai emphasised the urgency of developing such organic solutions that will help Africa adapt to the more extreme weather conditions that threaten the lives of tens of millions across the continent. The roots of many problems, she said, go back to generations preceding those that suffer the consequences though we are the gatekeepers for future generations. Ms. Maathai said that climate change, like a disease, will kill a body that is already weakened by decades of environmental mismanagement. One of the effects of climate change is more and more extreme weather conditions.

A solution at Copenhagen would facilitate the large scale planting of trees in Africa as well as preserving existing trees and forests. These are dual solutions, common to the REDD Programme and Agroforestry that will allow Africa to cope with the effects of climate change whilst adding to the effort to absorb carbon-dioxide.

The Nobel Laureate called for a fundamental change in the way people see trees and nature. She said that people should look at natural assets with respect, gratitude and a desire not to waste resources.

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