Enabling Ecological Resilience in Malawi
For far too long now, the fight against climate change and environmental degradation in Malawi has been subject to an existential dilemma: how to preserve forests without impinging on people’s livelihoods. According to the 2016–2017 Malawi Integrated Household Survey by the National Statistical Office, 97 percent of the population depend on fuelwood for cooking (81 percent firewood and 16 percent charcoal).
The over-reliance on forest resources makes it impossible for the government and other stakeholders to enforce the preservation of existing indigenous forests, without crippling a significant population that depend on these resources daily. According to the Global Forest Watch, An online platform that provides near real-time information on how forests are changing worldwide, Malawi has lost 10,500 hectares of indigenous forests over the past 10 years.
There is an urgent need for a comprehensive, integrated and mutually reinforcing approach that provides solutions to strengthen ecological resilience and foster the maintenance of the country’s biodiversity, while providing livelihood options to millions of Malawians whose survival depends on access to forest resources.
Government’s Commitment
The Malawi government has demonstrated the political will to create a favorable policy environment for collaboration within the sphere of environmental management. The National Charcoal Strategy is a testament to the government’s commitment to providing alternative fuel sources in Malawi. The strategy, which was launched in 2017, aims to promote a diversified, sustainable, and regulated household energy sector, while reducing the impact of deforestation on rural livelihoods and the economy.
Through the Ministry of Forestry and Natural Resources, the government has demonstrated a strong inclination to integrate giant bamboo into the National Landscape Restoration strategy, making a commitment to plant 114,000 hectares of previously degraded land with bamboo. This represents 3% of the total 4.2 million hectares that the government has pledged to reforest by 2030. Recently, the responsible minister, Honorable Nancy Tembo met officials from the Feed the Future Malawi Agriculture Diversification Activity (AgDiv) to discuss how the “giant” bamboo (Dendrocalamus Asper) can be utilized as a strategic resource to address catchment restoration, deforestation, and watershed management, while also providing an alternative source of fuelwood, charcoal, and income to Malawians.
In her remarks, the minister said the government is committed to promoting alternative fuel sources to ease pressure on the country’s forest resources, which have succumbed to the soaring demand for fuelwood, charcoal, and timber, amid a growing urban population in Malawi.
“Our goal is to get the citizens of the country to change from using charcoal to alternative fuel, especially in the urban areas, because I feel that degradation is mostly as a result of the insatiable appetite for these products in the urban areas,” she said.
The minister further emphasized the need to scale up the giant bamboo. She said it is an efficient solution to addressing deforestation problems, since it can provide numerous alternative livelihood options to millions of Malawian households.
Intervention
The AgDiv initiative, implemented with funding from USAID through Feed the Future, promotes the cultivation and commercialization of the giant bamboo as part of its drive to enhance household and community resilience in response to climate shocks. The project has engaged various strategic partners to scale up the giant bamboo and other resilience enhancing technologies.
AgDiv strategically selected the giant bamboo as a tool for building resilience, due to its unique regenerative capacity and its ability to protect the soil from erosion, owing to its robust and fibrous root system as well as its superior growth rate as compared to the indigenous bamboo, making it a more viable and sustainable source of fuelwood, charcoal, and timber. The project has since distributed 500,000 giant bamboo seedlings to individual farmers and communities in Lilongwe, Blantyre, Machinga, Mangochi, Salima, Dedza, Balaka, Chikwawa, and Nsanje districts.
In Dedza, AgDiv is working with three catchments around the Chongoni hills, consisting of over 7000 households, to actively reduce the likelihood and severity of floods that are experienced in the area. The project has been working with surrounding communities to develop a 9.5-kilometer buffer zone, consisting of giant bamboo, indigenous trees, and fruit trees. The buffer zone protects the Chongoni hills forest reserves from illegal logging, and the surrounding farm land from soil erosion, which has resulted in loss of arable land. Additional bamboo has been distributed to households as a sustainable fuel source and small-scale watershed management.
The project has also partnered with the Lilongwe Water Board and Area 25 Hospital to encourage adoption of the giant bamboo and other resilience enhancing technologies within the Lilongwe district. A demonstration site at the Area 25 Hospital has been established, where community members learn about various technologies, including the giant bamboo. Patients and guardians alike received giant bamboo seedlings and training on its uses. Through the Lilongwe water board, AgDiv has distributed bamboo seedlings to households around the immediate Lilongwe river watershed area, encouraging environmental stewardship and conservation of the sole water source to the city.