Rwanda

The wildlife of Rwanda comprising its flora and fauna, in prehistoric times, consisted of montane forest in one third the territory of present-day Rwanda. However, natural vegetation is now mostly restricted to the three National Parks and four small forest reserves, with terraced agriculture dominating the rest of the country.

The national parks and forest reserves are under threat due to poaching, invasive plants such as water hyacinth, unauthorized livestock grazing, illegal fishing, bush fires, mining, bamboo harvesting, encroachment of protected land for agricultural farming, firewood gathering, be keeping and herbal plant extraction. This situation is attributed to governance issues lacking in legal acts and guidelines and also heavy anthropogenic pressure.

Conservation management plans have been instituted for all protected areas which involves the community of villages living in and around the protected areas. Conservation activities have focused on increasing the forest density by planting trees in a "natural self rehabilitation and natural regeneration of primary and high value species". The planting has involved species such as carissa macrocarpa, entandrophragma (a genus of eleven species of deciduous trees) and symphonia globulifera, and erecting protective fencing on the boundary of the forest reserves using leguminous thorny plants.

One of the concerted efforts initiated by the Government of Rwanda is to increase the number of protected areas and to proliferate tree plantations to increase the present forest area cover of 10% to 20% by 2020.

The use of off-grid solar power has increased as solar panel prices have fallen and many areas do not expect grid connections in the near future. Solar power produces over 2% of electricity in the country. The country is in the midst of a rapid expansion of its electrical grid and many new plants are proposed or under construction.