Nearly all households in Malawi depend on firewood and charcoal for cooking and heating. The slow efforts to replace the trees going up in smoke have left forests waning and fertile top soil washed way by racing rain water.
As trees vanish, hunger and poverty are worsening. the degraded environment can no longer support the livelihoods of the country rapidly growing populations.
Madalena Dauda, a concern woman in Austin Village, Traditional Authority Phimbi in Balaka District knows how this burdens women and children.
” As disappear, women and children walk long distance to fetch for firewood, losing hours that are the best used to generate income and take care of our families, “She says.
Austin village Natural Resources Committee {VNRC} secretary Micheal Kampango recalls life was tough before they agreed to do something about it.
“We live in an area that get scanty rainfall, making rain fed agriculture difficult. This could be our failure to conserve the environment and it leaves us vulnerable to hunger and poverty amid climate change, “he says.
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that environmental degradation makes Malawians vulnerable to climate chocks such as flooding, drought and prolonged dry spells.
World Vision Malawi revamped and trained Austin VNRC in 2017.
The rural community collectively conserves the environment to strengthen their resilience to climate related weather chocks.
The community also sensitises the vulnerable community to the nature for grobla sustainable development grobal goals to end hunger and poverty by 2030.
A part from planting trees, the rural community has agreed to keep their has off waning the forests and stumps have sprouted again.
Consensus requires every household to use energy efficient cookstoves called Chitetezo mbaula to slow the loss of the trees.
The cookstoves made of clay almost halve amount of firewood that burns in open fireplaces with three stones, they say.
According to Kampango, the changing rainfall pattern helped them understand the importance of trees.
‘”To get a bumper harvest, we need the fertile topsoil being eroded due to the loss of trees. We experienced chronic hunger with the barren soils as most of us are poor to afford fertilizer and produce enough ,”he says.
Source: The Nation_April 23, 2021_by Temwa Mhone-Correspondent