Rwanda’s Journey of Restoration: Healing Land, Healing Lives

By Marc Reflects, September 2025

I often pause to look at Rwanda’s rolling hills, and I am struck by how the land tells its own story. Once stripped bare by deforestation, over-farming, and survival pressures, these hills now bear signs of healing. And yet, this healing has not been simple; it has required courage, sacrifice, and sometimes painful trade-offs. Our journey of restoration is not just about saving trees or wetlands only but it is about reshaping lives, livelihoods, and futures.

From Degradation to Renewal

Not long ago, Rwanda was counted among the most deforested countries in Africa. Population pressure after the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi pushed many families into fragile ecosystems. For instances, Gishwati, Mukura forests, wetlands in Kigali, steep hillsides were prone to erosion. Forest cover dwindled and rivers choked with silt. Food security was at risk, and disasters such as floods and landslides claimed lives.

However, today, Rwanda has reversed this decline. Forests now cover about 30.4% of our land, 724,695 hectares. Of this, around 18% is natural mountain rainforest, while the rest includes plantation forests, wooded savanna, and shrubs. Behind this statistic are countless acts of collective determination: terracing hillsides, planting trees, rehabilitating wetlands, and creating green parks where once only degradation reigned.

Gishwati and Mukura: Healing Forests, Healing Families

The case of Gishwati and Mukura forests is one of Rwanda’s most telling restoration stories. In the late 1990s, Gishwati was on the brink of collapse, reduced to a quarter of its original size. Families, displaced by war and poverty, had settled inside the forest. But conservation demanded hard choices.

Over 8,350 families were relocated from Gishwati in the early 2000s, a decision both celebrated and contested. Later, when Gishwati-Mukura was gazetted as Rwanda’s newest national park, more households were asked to move to create buffer zones. Some communities gained improved housing, schools, and health centers.

I cannot help but reflect: healing the land often asks us to reimagine what “healing lives” means. For some, it meant safer homes and services; for others, it meant the pain of uprooting. Restoration, then, is never purely ecological, it is deeply human.

Wetlands Reborn

The transformation of Nyandungu Wetland into a thriving eco-park is another story of redemption. Once degraded by human activity, it was restored into 121.7 hectares of green space, including 70 hectares of wetland and 50 hectares of forest. More than 17,000 indigenous trees from 55 species were planted, reviving biodiversity and water regulation.

Nyandungu is now a sanctuary for both nature and people. In 2024 alone, it welcomed 76,754 visitors, becoming a space where Kigali’s residents walk, breathe, and reconnect with nature. Beyond leisure, it has created about 4,000 green jobs, offering proof that restoration can fuel livelihoods. When I walk its paths, I see families picnicking, students studying under shade trees, and I think: here, land and lives are healing together.

Similarly, Kigali is a city built among wetlands—37 in total, covering 9,160 hectares, about 12.5% of its land area. For decades, they were drained and built over, worsening floods and water pollution. But Rwanda’s urban vision is now reversing this damage.

Five major wetlands such as Kibumba (68 ha), Nyabugogo (131 ha), Rugenge-Rwintare (65 ha), Gikondo (162 ha), and Rwampara (65 ha) are undergoing rehabilitation. This project alone is expected to benefit 220,500 residents vulnerable to floods and generate over 100,000 green jobs. Economists estimate that Kigali’s wetlands provide ecosystem services worth $74.2 million today, and that without protection, future losses could exceed $1.8 billion by 2050.

When I see bulldozers clearing illegal structures in these wetlands, I feel both relief and unease. Relief because it signals a new discipline of environmental responsibility. Unease because it often means families and businesses would move again. Restoration always asks: who sacrifices, and who benefits?

Agroforestry: Where Farms and Forests Meet

For many Rwandans, restoration is most tangible not in parks or policies, but in their own fields. Agroforestry, the integration of trees with crops has become a lifeline. On the hillsides, you can see grevillea and calliandra planted among maize, beans, and bananas. These trees fix nitrogen, prevent erosion, and provide fodder, firewood, and timber.

This quiet transformation allows farmers to grow food and restore ecosystems simultaneously. It is restoration you can eat, sell, and pass on to children. For investors, agroforestry is proof that environmental health and household wealth need not be enemies.

Healing Lives Through Relocation

Beyond forests and wetlands, restoration also means moving people from danger. In May 2023 alone, 5,812 households were identified for relocation from high-risk zones in Kigali, where floods and landslides threatened lives. As of early 2025, 4,309 households have been resettled, with projects like the Mpazi Rehousing Project providing safe new homes for 172 families in Nyarugenge District.

Such moves are not easy. They disrupt lives and test resilience. But they also reduce disaster risks, protect ecosystems, and give families a safer foundation for the future. Healing lives, in this sense, means protecting them from preventable tragedy.

A Personal Reflection

When I reflect on Rwanda’s restoration journey, I am filled with pride, but also with humility. We have set global precedents—committing to restore 2 million hectares under the Bonn Challenge, turning degraded wetlands into eco-tourism parks, and expanding forest cover. We are living proof that even a small, densely populated country can choose regeneration over exploitation.

And yet, healing land is only half the story. Healing lives requires constant attention to justice, inclusion, and dignity. Every tree planted, every wetland restored, every family relocated raises human questions: Do the people feel empowered? Do they find new opportunities? Do they feel the healing too?

Rwanda’s journey of restoration is far from over. But as I walk through Nyandungu, or drive past the newly terraced hills of Gishwati, I see a story unfolding: a story where scarred land is recovering, and where lives, despite hardship, are finding renewal.

This is our quiet victory healing land, healing lives.