1st Horn of Africa Regional Environment Meet Opens Tomorrow

The Ethiopian Herald (Addis Ababa)
NEWS
December 3, 2006
Posted to the web December 4, 2006

By ENA
Addis Ababa

The 1st Horn of Africa Regional Environment Meeting scheduled to be held tomorrow is set to officially announce a plan to establish the Horn of Africa Regional Environment Network and Centre, the Addis Ababa University (AAU) amnounced.

The establishment of the Network and the Centre is initiated by the AAU in collaboration with the Dutch Regional Environment Programme in the Horn of Africa under the Netherlands Embassy in Ethiopia, according to AAU.

The network and the centre will aim to improve environmental governance in the Horn and that selected indigenous civil society organizations, universities and research institutions in Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Eritrea and Kenya that are dealing with environmental governance issues would form the membership the AAU said.

Based on the assessment missions undertaken in Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya, it will be explained that the Network and the Centre will focus on three major integrated environmental management topics including management of lakes and wetlands; management of parks and buffer zones/ and management of erosion-prone highlands and dry lowlands.

The first integrated environmental management topics will be placed in the limelight, focusing on three geographical concentration areas, namely Lake Naivasha in the Kenyan Rift Valley, the Ethiopian Central Rift Valley with Lakes Abiyata, Shala, Langano and Zeway as well as the Sudd Swamps in Southern Sudan.

The main aim of the first meeting will be to exchange knowledge and experience regarding the improvement of management of lakes and wetlands by mirroring efforts in these first three geographic concentration areas in the region, the AAU said.