In the steep red hills of the Ngororero district in northwest Rwanda, Antoine Nsanzumuhire gently lifts a honeycomb from one of his beehives. Bees are swirling around him as he delicately lifts the latticework, rich in golden honey.
Nsanzumuhire has 200 modern hives dotted across his forest-fringed farm, something he can scarcely believe. Just a few years ago he had 20, as landslides and erratic weather – made worse by climate change – ravaged his small beekeeping operation. But with support from a project backed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), he joined a local cooperative. Members taught him how to use modern beehives and plant trees around his farm, which helps boost production by providing foraging grounds for the bees.
“The money I am earning now allows me to plan for two main goals,” says Nsanzumuhire. ”The first is to build a good house and set up my own honey business.”
Nsanzumuhire is among hundreds of Rwandan farmers whose incomes have grown thanks to the UNEP-backed project launched by the Rwanda Environment Management Authority, with support from the Global Environment Facility. The project, active in communities across the country, is helping restore forests and wetlands while equipping farmers with livelihoods that are more resilient to climate stress.
Farmers who form the backbone of Rwanda’s economy, have seen crop productivity dwindle under the weight of climate change and erratic weather, including severe floods or droughts, that affect soil erosion and further degrade land.
Unlike crops, beekeeping is less vulnerable to rainfall fluctuations. But for beehives to thrive, communities have had to embark on an ambitious effort to restore degraded land and plant trees, which absorb rainfall and anchor soil with their roots, reducing the risk of floods, droughts, and landslides. The forests have also become foraging ground for bees.
Tree planting has another benefit: forests absorb carbon dioxide from the air, helping to cool the planet and counter the climate crisis.
The work in Ngoreorero district is what experts refer to as ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) to climate change. Mirey Atallah, Head of UNEP’s Adaptation and Resilience Branch, says ecosystem-based adaptation is a cost-effective solution to the climate crisis.
“What makes ecosystem-based adaptation so powerful is that it solves more than one problem at once — it cools the land, restores biodiversity, reduces floods and puts money in people’s pockets,” Atallah says.
After years of environmental degradation driven by human activities such as illegal mining, logging, and overgrazing, and compounded by the climate crisis, the UNEP-supported project in Rwanda restored over 700 hectares of degraded ecosystems, including forests, wetlands, savannahs and riverbanks.
On the eastern side of Rwanda in Kirehe district, Marine Babonampoze, dressed in her beekeeping suit, walks through the now protected Ibanda-Makera forest, where melodic bird song and insect hums fill the air. She is joined by fellow beekeepers from a new cooperative, also established with the UNEP-supported project.
Babonampoze emphasizes the power of community. “Cooperative members work together and care for one another,” says Babonampoze. “Everything becomes better when we unite.”
While beekeeping in Rwanda is traditionally considered a male activity, the project has benefited female community members. “In the beginning, we were only men,” says Jean Baptiste Ngirinshuti, a cooperative representative in Kirehe. “Women who had already joined and improved their livelihoods brought others along, which is why you now see more women than men involved.”
Since the project was established, yields have soared in the Ngororero beekeeping cooperative by nearly 10-fold to 264 kg per season.
For cooperative members like Goretti Bahirumwe, beekeeping has become a lifeline. When her husband fell ill, she was forced to sell her cows and pigs to cover medical expenses. When he passed away, she was left to care for six children on her own. Joining the Ngororero cooperative gave her a chance to rebuild.
“When the forest was being cut down, our bees had nowhere to forage, and there was no yield,” she says, noting beekeeping helped her buy livestock. “But now, with the forest protected, our bees have both a good yield and security.”
For more information about the project, visit "Building Resilience of Communities Living in Degraded Forests, Savannahs and Wetlands of Rwanda".
About the Global Environment Facility
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) includes several multilateral funds working together to address the planet's most pressing challenges in an integrated way. Its financing helps developing countries address complex challenges and work towards meeting international environmental goals. Over the past three decades, the GEF has provided more than US$26 billion in financing, primarily as grants, and mobilized another US$148 billion for country-driven priority projects.
The Sectoral Solution to the climate crisis
UNEP is at the forefront of supporting thehttps://www.un.org/en/climatechange/paris-agreement Paris Agreement goal of keeping global temperature rise well below 2°C, and aiming for 1.5°C, compared to pre-industrial levels. To do this, UNEP has developed the Sectoral Solution, a roadmap to reducing emissions across sectors in line with the Paris Agreement commitments and in pursuit of climate stability. The six sectors identified are: energy; industry; agriculture and food; forests and land use; transport; and buildings and cities.
