Rwanda Launches Tree-Planting Season Targeting Over 100 Million Trees: Kigali Hosts Climate and MSME Gatherings
Rwanda's Ministry of Environment launched the 2026-2027 national tree planting season in Kigali on November 7, targeting more than 100 million trees. In the same week, Prime Minister Justin Nsengiyumva opened both the high-level segment of the Montreal Protocol parties' meeting and the 26th East African Community MSME Trade Fair in Kigali, in a full green agenda for the East African country.
The season opened at the Nyabigugu planting site in Gahanga Sector, Kicukiro District, as a community Umuganda exercise, with Environment Permanent Secretary Fidèle Bingwa officiating under the continuing theme My Tree, My Legacy. The planting mix covers production forests, agroforestry, indigenous species and fruit trees across all districts. Ministry figures show the previous season planted 68.5 million trees against a 60 million target, about 14 percent above goal, and national forest cover now stands at 30.4 percent.
Climate diplomacy moved in parallel in Kigali. The Prime Minister's office reported that on November 5, Nsengiyumva, on behalf of President Paul Kagame, opened the high-level segment of the 38th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol. The meeting falls ten years after the Kigali Amendment, adopted in the capital in 2016, which commits countries to phasing down hydrofluorocarbons, powerful greenhouse gases used in refrigeration and air conditioning.
On the regional economy, the prime minister also opened the 26th EAC Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Trade Fair on November 4, bringing small businesses from across East Africa to Kigali. Days earlier, on November 2, he had attended the third Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow on the president's behalf.
Tree planting, a climate conference and an MSME fair point the same way: Rwanda is making environmental governance a signature agenda. The season's real test is survival rates, and officials stress that care after planting and community ownership matter as much as the planting itself. District-by-district progress over the coming months is worth tracking.
(Source: Office of the Prime Minister of Rwanda)
Source: Office of the Prime Minister of Rwanda
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：基加利会议中心航拍，摄于2019年6月19日，卢旺达首都基加利。照片：Emmanuel Kwizera，CC BY-SA 4.0，经维基共享资源。 / Photo: Aerial view of the Kigali Convention Centre in Kigali, Rwanda, on June 19, 2019. Photo by Emmanuel Kwizera, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
