- In Malawi’s Zomba Forest Reserve, a community that once destroyed the forest has become its custodian, protecting a source of streams, which provide water for them to irrigate crops.
- The Department of Forestry, the lead government agency in forest protection in Malawi, is struggling to stem the tide of deforestation on its side of the reserve due to lack of resources.
- Malawi is suffering massive deforestation, with Global Forest Watch figures estimating that the country has lost quarter of a million hectares (617,000 acres) of forest cover between 2001 and 2023.
- Government officials and experts say engagement with communities offers opportunities for effective forest management.
ZOMBA PLATEAU, Malawi — The Zomba Forest Reserve is a tale of two faces. A large part of the northern section of the plateau is stripped to its last undergrowth by cultivation and charcoal production by communities. Meanwhile, its southern section, covering almost a tenth of the reserve and managed by communities, is a spectacle of a glorious forest.
On this southern edge of the mountainous forest reserve in Malawi’s old capital city of Zomba is Peter Kamowa’s home — a one-room, mud-brick and grass-thatched house, the only one this far up the slope in the village.
Its roof is partially covered by flourishing passion fruit vines, which also creep over a row of several young indigenous trees around the house. It weaves a tapestry under which Kamowa likes to rest during the day. Down below, there’s the sound of water gurgling in a stream, one of the two perennial creeks descending from the forest.
“These streams are the lifeline of this community,” Kamowa says. On the rich loam soils along the streams are maize, cassava, cabbages, tomatoes, carrots, bananas, sugar cane and strawberries, which the community grows.
“Here, we don’t know drought. We don’t know dry season. We grow crops throughout the year because of these streams; so I decided to settle here to help protect these rivers by protecting their source,” he tells Mongabay, pointing at an impressive indigenous forest that’s scaling up the slope to the peak of the mountain.
This forest is a section of the Zomba Forest Reserve, one of the 88 protected forests under the Department of Forestry.
From the late 1990s, this section was, like the rest of the reserve, on the path of destruction as communities invaded it largely for charcoal production. It was a free-for-all until around 2012, when a project made the communities realize that in destroying the forest, they were destroying the means of their own livelihoods.
The project organized them into groups and they embarked on activities to restore and conserve it. Now, the community’s side is flourishing more than the state-protected section in the north.
North vs. south
In the northern section, the soils are dry and bare in most places. Streams have dried up, and wildlife such as monkeys, hyenas and some bird species now seek refuge in isolated surviving forest groves on the southern slopes of the reserve.
Malawi is suffering rapid deforestation. Between 2001 and 2023, it lost almost quarter of a million hectares (617,000 acres) of its 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres) of tree cover, according to Global Forest Watch. In 2023 alone, the data show, the country had nearly 23,000 hectares (56,800 acres) cleared of tree cover, the highest forest loss in a single year since 2001.
The rampaging deforestation has not spared protected reserves, and the forestry department, the primary government agency for forest protection in Malawi, is struggling to stem the tide. The department attributes this largely to inadequate funding.
Details in the government’s annual economic reports covering the period 1998 to 2023 show that the department has never received even half of its operational funding requests during that period. The treasury tells Mongabay this is because of inadequate funds at its disposal against the competing needs of various sectors.
This persistent insufficient funding affects the department’s mandates such as recruitment of forest guards and purchasing patrol equipment to enhance law enforcement for illegal cultivation and charcoal production.
Covering 5,084 hectares (12,500 acres), the Zomba Forest Reserve would require a minimum of 15 forest guards to patrol it. However, since 2021, it has had only four guards against scores of illegal loggers and charcoal producers, some of them armed with machetes and prepared to fight, officials at the reserve, who prefer not to be named, tell Mongabay.
“Firstly, government capacity is extremely limited — it simply does not have the trained personnel or the budget needed to actively manage all gazetted government plantations and the 88 forest reserves,” says Ramzy Kanaan, chief of party of Modern Cooking for Healthy Forests (MCHF), a project co-funded by USAID and UK Aid. “Frankly speaking, there are many of these government forest reserves that do not have anywhere near the staffing levels that would be required to actively manage them.”
On the other hand, communities are located right next to every forest reserve, he tells Mongabay, which means they have far better knowledge of these forests and can play a critical role in their management.
While the government is struggling to contain deforestation from communities, the southern section of the same forest reserve shows communities shifting from degrading forest resources to conserving them.
Within the forest area on the southern slope is a five-room property that the British colonial government, which ruled Malawi until 1964, constructed as an official residence. It is now owned by the forestry department as a cottage. In 2012, the government handed over management of the lodge to private operator Tom Inch who founded the Zomba Forest Lodge guesthouse.
Noting how rampant deforestation and frequent bushfires threatened the ecosystem that the business needed to thrive, the new management launched a drive to mobilize local communities toward the area’s environmental management.
The project, dubbed Zomba TREEZ, organized the communities into groups such as football and netball teams, tour guides and church choirs. Each group was allocated an area of the forest to manage. They plant indigenous and fruit trees, fight fires, patrol against encroachers, remove invasive species and conduct community environmental education campaigns.
At the end of every year, the project pays about $0.20 for each tree that survives, whether big or small. The groups share the money among the members for home use or invest it in some community activity like helping the sick or maintaining a project. Some groups can earn as much as $300 a year depending on the size of their area of protection. Shared among individual members, it might not be much in terms of regular income. But in a country where more than 50% of the population lives on less than $1 a day, the payday windfall is something to look forward to.
“We understood that for the community to value the trees, we needed to add value to them; so, we decided to pay a sum for each tree that survives per year, no matter how big or small,” says Inch, manager of the project.
Although the survival rate of the trees was not shared with Mongabay, bushfires have reportedly declined dramatically. According to Jonas Beyard, leader of the Nankhunda Transformation Initiative, a community-led organization that’s working with the project, in 2012, the community recorded 37 bushfires in one area. But in 2023, there was only one fire. So far this year, they’ve also experienced only one fire.
Bushfires are no longer a problem on the community-managed side anymore, the district forestry office also tells Mongabay.
Chief Chisamba, a traditional leader of the community, says they have realized even greater benefits from conserving the forest.
In March 2023, Cyclone Freddy battered Malawi and was characterised by mudslides descending from mountains and razing villages. In the Zomba Forest Reserve, mudslides also broke out of a bare patch of the forest on the southern side, but the restored section of the reserve stopped the avalanche from going farther and sweeping the villages down.
“We would have perished if it was not that forest. That gives us more motivation to protect it,” Chisamba says.
Sustainable income, not temporary relief
Realizing that people still need wood for cooking, heating and building, the project encourages the community to only cut branches of a tree.
“If they cut down the tree, it is like killing their dairy cow. If the cow is alive, they can obtain milk for a period of time. Once the cow is killed, there will be no more milk,” Inch says.
Beyard says when communities see, through practical examples, the benefits of keeping the forest standing, they give their all in its protection.
“We associate this forest with our food and income security through the crops, which the streams water. Often, people invade forests for money to run their homes. This only offers temporary relief. With the forest intact, we have created a sustainable means of income,” he says.
To deepen the gains, households are growing woodlots and orchards in their backyards and practice agroforestry in their fields through which they source timber and firewood and earn money.
That is why Chimwemwe Chalera no longer finds reason to go up the forest to produce charcoal or fetch firewood. Through natural regeneration, she has turned a small part of her farmland into a natural forest that’s providing her with firewood.
“From the late 1990s, that forest was free-for-all. It could have been gone by now. These streams started failing. When this project came, it opened our eyes,” she tells Mongabay standing in front of her private forest lot.
However, it has taken a lot of hard work to change minds, chief Chisamba admits.
“We still have a few defiant people,” he says. “But what satisfies me most is the growing spirit of volunteerism. We no longer wait for government forest patrol staff. We are the patrol staff.”
It’s that spirit that drove Kamowa to settle on the forest edge. After retiring almost 10 years ago from his work with a state produce company in Blantyre, Malawi’s commercial city, he returned to his village and settled on the land he inherited from his parents.
“This forest was once untouched. Now that we have restored it from its fallen state, I am here as its watchman. When I see suspicious people around, I ask them questions or report them to community patrol teams. When I see fire, I raise alarm,” he says.
MCHF’s Kanaan says, “Figuring out ways to meaningfully engage communities in the management of state forest reserves in a manner that provides them with real benefits, while contributing to improved management is extremely important — and such options are very likely the best option that government has today (or will have in the near future) to improve forest management.”
According to Yusuf Nkungula, principal secretary in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Climate Change, it is part of the government’s policy to partner with local communities to decide how to best manage forests, conduct patrols and plant trees. But in practice, the government isn’t able to provide support to the communities other than the policy that allows them to play their role, he tells Mongabay.
Kamowa lived during the time when the entire forest was intact. He also lived in a time when it was nearly wiped out and witnessed how that eroded the benefits “we took for granted.”
“Seeing its revival now motivates me. I am 64, so I hope the youths will carry on for the benefit of generations,” he says.
Banner image: Peter Kamowa settled in the edge of the forest and helps to guard it from invasion. Image by Charles Mpaka for Mongabay.
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