Project Countries: Rwanda and Burundi
Project Area: Sebeya and Ruhwa River Systems (Rwanda), Muhira River system (Burundi)
Project Duration: April 2017 – March 2019
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Climate Resilient Altitudinal Gradients - CRAGs
Altitudinal Gradients matter: they are important for domestic, industrial water supplies and sustain Key Biodiversity Areas. In the context of the African Great Lakes Region, the freshwater provision and regulation is the most crucial ecosystem service that is driven by Altitudinal Gradients. These landscapes are likely to occur everywhere; ranging from the very steep slopes in the Lake Kivu and Rusizi River Catchments (Rwanda, DRC and Burundi), to the more gentle hillsides around Lake Victoria (Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania). However, these mountains experience increasing pressures, including climate change and unsustainable land use practices. If these gradients remain dangerously vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, the well-being of humans and natural ecosystems is threatened.
The acronym CRAG stands for Climate Resilient Altitudinal Gradient, which is a landscape unit with a minimum altitudinal range of 1,000 meters, and which is characterized by climate resilient biodiversity and ecosystem service values. The goal of the project is to help to understand, and respond to, increased environmental pressures from climate change, and to create and expand incentives to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services in the South Kivu and Rusizi River catchments.
Tharcisse Vyamungu goes about briskly planting tree seedlings in the sun soaked fields of Lake Tanganyika Basin in Burundi. Vyamungu and other local farmers are tending to a number of tree nurseries dotting the farmlands. They are enhancing climate change resilience.
By Providence Akayezu, Ken Mwathe and Felicien Karekezi Uwizeye
A number of rivers take source from these mountains of the North Western Rwanda
The CRAG project is applying various conservation approaches and activities, such as integrated water management; ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change; soil erosion, pollution and forest management; and community livelihoods, which have impact across a landscape gradient in ways that directly benefit human wellbeing and the biodiversity.
Erosion resulting from human activities such as agriculture is a widespread and major cause of land degradation. Addressing erosion and sedimentation is therefore central to the CRAG approach currently being piloted in the Lake Kivu–Rusizi River Basins in Burundi, DR Congo and Rwanda.
Protected forests in Kivu-Rusizi Climate Resilient Altitudinal Gradient (CRAG) landscape are highly important for the well-being of its surrounding human population.
The Association pour la Conservation de la Nature au Rwanda (ACNR), the BirdLife International partner in Rwanda, plus other partners in the region work together to enhance climate change resilience in the Lake Kivu Basin by applying the CRAG approach.
Major changes to the climate are happening in the villages of South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo, affecting the physical environment and even the social structure of the communities. Horizon Nature is an NGO working in South Kivu and is partnering with BirdLife International and other partners in the region to enhancing climate change resilience in the Lake Kivu Basin through applying the CRAG approach.