The report is structured around two arguments. Firstly, natural resources and ecosystem services in particular have significant contribution to economic growth and poverty reduction. Secondly, failure to manage natural resources, conserve and protect the ecosystem will result in costs of degradation that will compromise medium and long term sustainable development. These arguments are nested in a context of poverty in Rwanda. While deep levels of poverty in Rwanda are related to a recent genocide, there is ample evidence to show that they are also related to increasing population pressure, degradation of the environment and unsustainable use of land and natural resources in the four decades after independence.