The Busaga Forest is a remnant of a larger world, a 152-hectare montane rainforest that clings to the heights of the Rongi Sector. High in the forks of its largest trees, the Hooded Vulture builds its stick nests, the only place in Rwanda where this scavenger still breeds. When agitated or courting, the bird’s bare facial skin flushes from a pale pink to a deep, vivid red—a silent pulse of life in a forest that has long been retreating under the pressure of the plow.
The restoration effort led by Nature Rwanda and BirdLife International acknowledges a simple truth: the forest cannot survive if the people beside it are hungry. By planting Hass and Fuerte varieties across 30 hectares of degraded land, 343 households are building a living buffer. These trees do more than hold the earth against the 1,200 millimeters of annual rainfall; they offer a crop that will reach maturity in three to four years, turning a struggle for survival into a stable trade.
For Twagirimana, the work is a quiet reconciliation. He once saw the forest and his farm as rivals for the same few meters of earth, but as the 7,500th tree is settled into the Rwandan highlands, that distinction is fading. To nourish the soil with deep-rooted perennials is to ensure the vultures have a canopy to return to, and the village has a future to rely upon. He no longer sees the trees as a barrier, but as the very thing that binds his land to the mountain.