RIPPLE Africa runs a forest conservation project in Malawi, Africa. The RIPPLE Africa forest conservation project has one ultimate aim:
For years, RIPPLE Africa has worked to fight deforestation in Malawi through tree planting and fuel-efficient cookstove projects. However, while RIPPLE Africa has been fighting deforestation in populated lowland areas, the charity has watched in sadness as the mature indigenous forests in the hills of Malawi’s Nkhata Bay District continue to disappear. Devastatingly, these forested hills are a primary factor in regulating the annual rainfall in the area. And frustratingly, deforestation here is pointless: the land is too steep and stony for farming, the hills too remote for extracting firewood, and erosion caused by deforestation washes away any decent top soil left. So why are people cutting these forests down? Just a handful of farmers are responsible for all this destruction through the practice of shifting cultivation. They clear acres of forest, burn the trees where they fall (as they are too remote to transport the wood), temporarily cultivate the land for just one to three years until crops fail, render the soil infertile, and move on and do it all again. The practice is appalling, selfish, and illegal in Malawi. However, in the hills there is no regulation, so it continues unabated.
In 2010, RIPPLE Africa held a series of meetings with the District Commissioner, the Forestry Department, Traditional Authorities (TAs), Village Headmen, and volunteer Conservation Committees at community level to discuss the options for protecting the forested hills. The joint committee learned they had the power to create local bylaws to legally protect their own forest land. Many TAs and Village Headmen had been writing to RIPPLE Africa for years, begging the charity for help on the issue, and now RIPPLE Africa could help them to take action. Local TAs, Village Headmen, and Conservation Committees nominated the areas they wanted to protect, and RIPPLE Africa worked with the senior officials to draft the bylaws which banned all farming, burning, wood harvesting, and settlement in the protected forest hills. In December 2010, areas were outlined, bylaws were passed, and the RIPPLE Africa forest conservation project was born — making TV, radio, and newspaper headlines in Malawi!
The RIPPLE Africa forest conservation project is a huge undertaking. Passing the bylaws was essential, but success depends on constant monitoring. RIPPLE Africa is working in partnership with the Forestry Department to patrol the protected areas, and employs additional forest guards, provides the fuel and motorbikes necessary to patrol such a huge area, and holds regular meetings with the Conservation Committees to ascertain reports of any illegal activity in the protected forests. RIPPLE Africa’s environmental team also works with the communities to educate people on the importance of forest conservation, to explain the bylaws and answer questions, and to promote sustainable environmental practice which benefits the community, such as RIPPLE Africa’s Integrated Tree Planting and Cookstove Project. The RIPPLE Africa forest conservation project is a huge commitment, but the benefit to the environment and to Malawi is tremendous, and will be appreciated for generations to come.
Deforestation is one of the greatest issues facing Africa today. The effects of deforestation are tangible: less rain, hotter climates, soil erosion, and drought bring famine, poverty, and starvation. Yet in Malawi, an area of forest the size of a football pitch is cut down every 10 minutes! (To find out more about deforestation in Africa, please read the General Information About the Environment in Malawi.)
RIPPLE Africa is doing everything it can to combat deforestation on all fronts. However, the RIPPLE Africa forest conservation project is special. The RIPPLE Africa forest conservation project is not only targeting deforestation, but it is also saving the forested hills responsible for regulating much of the rainfall in the district! With 90% of the population in Malawi gaining their income from subsistence farming, rainfall and climate stability are not just issues for environmentalists, they are inextricably linked to poverty, health, and survival for our own local people. RIPPLE Africa’s forest conservation project is important to Malawi; however, most of all, it is important to local people who are extremely vulnerable to the consequences of deforestation if the RIPPLE Africa forest conservation project were unable to continue.
Forest conservation is expensive. Staff salaries, meetings, fuel, transport, and education programmes all cost money. However, the RIPPLE Africa forest conservation project runs largely on a grassroots basis, utilising local partnerships and volunteer committees to make the project as cost effective as possible! RIPPLE Africa really needs core support to make sure we can continue protecting Malawi’s forested hills.
To see all of RIPPLE Africa's videos, please go to the YouTube RIPPLE Africa Channel