The Bezos Earth Fund on Tuesday announced $22.8 million in funding to help accelerate the restoration of two areas in Africa that are seen as critical for carbon sequestration, biodiversity and human wellbeing.

The grants will fund the rehabilitation of 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of degraded land in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, Bezos Earth Fund President and Chief Executive Officer Andrew Steer said at the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, the East African nation’s capital. It will also fund the restoration of the Lake Kivu and Rusizi River Basin in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, part of the world’s second-largest rain forest and home to five million people, he said.

Source: Bloomberg