• Traditional leaders across the country must desist from allocating land in the forest.
• Some tradition leaders have allocated huge chunks of land in the forests and Game Management Areas.
• Such vices are breeding effects of climate change.

Minster of Green Economy and Environment has appealed to traditional leaders across the country to desist from allocating land in the forest.
Collins Nzovu says forestry land belongs to the state and not to traditional leaders who are in the habit of distributing land in the forests.
Mr. Nzovu said such vices were breeding more effects of climate change with Zambia topping statistics of forest degradation on the continent because of such vices.
He noted that it has become a common trend in Zambia where Chiefs are sharing forests.
“I want to make it very clear that Chiefs have no power to allocate forest land. This is an illegality and no one is above the law,” Mr. Nzovu said.
Mr Nzovu also warned perpetrators that the law would visit them if they continued on that path of illegalities.
He appealed to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and through the House of Chiefs to help in preserving the forests.
“Government cannot allow a situation whereby people are now making settlements in the forests, hence we are giving them a very short timeframe in which to vacate the areas and go back to where they came from,” he added.
Mr. Nzovu appealed to cooperating partners to assist with afforestation techniques and finding alternative methods of survival for the people.
He was speaking when he undertook a tour of Mumbwa district where it was revealed that huge chunks of land in the forests and Game Management Areas had been allocated by some named traditional leaders to people for illegal cutting of trees for charcoal.

Meanwhile, Mumba District Forest Officer Hamoonga Mosty said Chiefs in question have been contacted through the office of the District Commissioner to find a lasting solution to the vice but they were not cooperating because they realized the illegality they were involved in.