Improved Forest Resource Management – Malawi

The Improved Forest Resource Management Project has established one village nursery and trained local people in fruit tree production and grafting.  In the future, the project is hoping to establish more tree nurseries, train more people to grow trees in quantity for outplanting in community plantations and woodlots, and individual plantings.  Natural forest regeneration techniques will also be promoted.  To deal with poor farming practices, agroforestry will be emphasised to take advantage of the beneficial effects trees can provide in combination with seasonal crops.  To help alleviate the impact of destructive fuelwood cutting, firewood lots will be planted to be managed on a coppice system and fuel efficient mud stoves will be introduced in the communities.  This project is ongoing and will involve planting 1.25 million trees annually from 50 village nurseries.  Over the life of the project a total of 3.75 million trees are expected to be planted.

The major impact has been the acquisition of skills on tree propagation by the nursery group. They now have the skills and can continue raising trees on an individual basis especially now  that the demand for fruit trees is high in Usisya, and will be a source of income from the sale of fruits in later years.  Due to shortage of firewood, families resort to cutting mature mango trees to get firewood for the brick kilns.  This will create a natural demand for mangos to be replaced and individual members of the tree nursery group can start individual nurseries and sell seedlings to the community.

At community level, the planting of all kinds of trees for fruits, for control of soil erosion and conservation of forests in general is the major concern.  At farmer level emphasis is on planting for food and increased ground cover.  The presence of a woman in the nursery group was a source of inspiration for other women especially widows and the PLWA group who were trained in horticulture by Temwa and wanted to grow fruit trees.

Usisya is located on Lake Malawi with a population of 17,500 in 50 villages.  Usisya is a very remote area and has been neglected by government and other service providers.  The area has one seasonal gravel road which is useable only by four wheel drive vehicles in the dry season; there is neither land telephone lines or a network for mobile phones.  The area is currently experiencing a fast rate of deforestation, with extensive tree cutting in the valley floor and in the surrounding mountains.  This is increasing the rate of soil erosion and potential for destructive flooding during the wet season.  There is extensive soil run-off and silt pollution in to Lake Malawi.

 

A participating female farmer in her field where she planted an orange tree

Temwa has helped create awareness for the need to conserve forest resources and the building capacity of communities to manage their communal forest areas; to train the communities in sustainable forest management practices; promoted and established tree nurseries in VDC’s for planting both at institutions and individual woodlots; encouraged regenerations in natural forest; promoted sustainable farming methods particularly in agro-forestry, and piloted and promoted the production and usage of fuel efficient stoves.  Other communities within Mbwana would like The Improved Forest ResourceManagement Project to extend to their area  to help to start nurseries for fruit trees and other multipurpose tree species, as farmers there can see the benefits of the project which has helped in controlling soil erosion and for providing a source of food and income with the availability of raw materials for small scale industries like juice making.