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NAT.RESOURCES
Until some six years ago, the selling of charcoal and firewood
had remained a major income generating activity
among most households in Mwanza East, in the southern part of MalawiThe ever increasing demand for wood for fuel in the nearby commercial city of Blantyre and the availability of natural forests in Mwanza district, had provided a fertile ground for trade in forest products. But in 1996, Malawi’s government had realised that Mwanza, like many parts of the country, was facing serious and worsening problems of deforestation and environmental degradation, which had continued at an average rate of two percent a year.
The deforestation rate had also manifested itself through the number of charcoal and firewood truck loads being ferried into the cities and the number of forest areas being depleted each day.
Forestry project
In a bid to save the remaining trees and replace those that had been cleared out, the government and some of its donors had, in 1997, established a community-based natural resources management project in Mwanza east.
The project which is being implemented under the Forestry Sector Technical Coordinating Unit (FSTCU) of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), also seeks to empower communities around the project area with skills that will enable them to generate income from the forests, without cutting down trees.
This is being achieved through the project components of producing juice from baobab (adansonia digitata) and tamarind (tamarindus indica) fruits; rearing and selling guinea fowl; bee-keeping and honey production; cane-furniture making.
The Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi (WESM) is an indigenous non-governmental organisation appointed to oversee the implementation of the project, which started with a pilot phase covering five villages of 4,065 people.
WESM‘s Executive Director, Daulos Mauambeta is satisfied at the progress the project has achieved since its inception. He states: «Communities are engaged in a number of income generating activities, therefore ensuring the supply of forest products and sources of jobs and income. Above all, the project is improving the environment and household food security. The project which is currently being implemented in 13 villages with a population of 10,569 people, covering 2,457 households, has also managed to increase the household per capita income from 3,000 kwacha (43 US dollars) to 9,000 kwacha (130 US dollars) for those involved in the project activities, especially guinea-fowl rearing, fruit juice production and bee-keeping».
Project Profile
According to a Project Profile from WESM, communities in the area had raised about 900,000 kwacha (about 13,000 US dollars) from the sale of 6,000 guinea fowls in 2001, an increase from 500,000 kwacha (about 7,200 dollars) realised after selling 3,500 guinea fowls in the previous year.
Apart from individual buyers, other development-oriented organisations such as Action Aid (Malawi) and the Evangelical Lutheran Development Programme (ELDP) had also bought the birds to incorporate the rearing activity into their respective programmes.
The Project Profile states: «The total forestry cover under the project has also increased from 6,000 to 22,000 hectares, and communities have adopted decentralised environmental management principles through this Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) project.» The German government, through its various development agencies has been the major financier of the project. The German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) has provided substantial financial and technical support for the implementation of most measures since 1997.
Mwanza East CBNRM is among the six SADC-FSTCU projects currently underway in four of the SADC‘s 14 member states. Botswana and Namibia have two projects each, while Mozambique has one.
Malawi is currently responsible for the SADC‘s forestry sector which has been mandated to coordinate all regional forestry development activities. This is carried out through its Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs. According to a project report from the FSTCU regional headquarters in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe, a total of Kwacha 1.3 billion (19 million dollars) had been invested into the six projects between March 1997 and February 2002.
Developments at the Mwanza CBNRM project also indicate that most countries in the SADC region may eventually achieve a sustainable management of their environment, through disseminating successful strategies such as innovative income generating activities, for the poor and marginalised rural communities — communities which presently are indulging in destructive economic activities because of their on-going poverty.
Since its inception, the project has hosted various domestic and regional delegations which came to learn how non-timber products from their forests could be processed and marketed for better returns. «Other countries such as Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia have visited this project and have already started implementing some of the project activities in their respective countries,» says Mauambeta. He says the project exported 120 live guinea fowls to Namibia in May 2001.
It is clear that such income-generating projects will help to preserve Malawi’s forestry reserves in the years to come.
- Kennie Cliff Ntonga, Malawi, May 2002 — © Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgment
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