Ten thousand Trees in Malawi
ERS is helping to plant ten thousand trees in Malawi in partnership with Ripple Africa. This is only the beginning! The aim of the programme in Malawi is to grow 4 million trees per year by establishing 400 community tree nurseries, each growing 10,000 trees per year to provide a sustainable source of wood for the future. Also to train, educate and empower the local communities to sustainably manage their environment to reduce poverty.
Malawi is a poor country and 80% of the people live in rural areas. Wood is a necessary part of everyday life, and also there is tremendous pressure to clear forests for agriculture. The present way of life is not sustainable. Wood has always been treated as a free resource and vast areas of woodland have been cleared carelessly without any replanting for future generations. This deforestation also leads to soil erosion, land degradation and ultimately climate change which is and will have a devastating effect.
What are the problems?
Domestic firewood (only 2% of the population have access to mains electricity — just making a cup of tea uses several logs)
Selling firewood (wood is sold to areas where all the trees have been cut down)
Brick burning (to fire kilns to make bricks)
Shifting cultivation (when the soil is exhausted, virgin forest is cleared for new farmland)
Bush burning (in the dry season, large areas of land are cleared by burning the bush)
Building
Tobacco drying (1 acre of tobacco requires up to 3 acres of woodland to cure the tobacco)
About the Tree Nursery
Each tree nursery is set up with three partners: Firstly, the Chief and community, secondly, RIPPLE Africa and, thirdly, the Forestry Department.
The local community provide the land and labour. RIPPLE Africa supplies the equipment, seeds and polythene tubes, and also provides advice, technical assistance and training. The Forestry Department provide additional advice and monitoring. After the rainy season, during the month of May, the nursery is established and polythene tubes are filled with a mixture of compost and earth. Seeds are planted from July through to September, and the seedlings are raised and nurtured until January when they are planted out. The trees belong to the community and are planted in community woodlots, on degraded land and in people's gardens/farms.
Initially, there is an emphasis on quick-growing trees for firewood. One tree that is being grown in large numbers of this year are sendrella; this wood provides firewood and building timber within four to five years, and the trees can easily be coppiced.
The programme also encourages large numbers of indigenous trees to replace forests that have been cut down, and for the long term there will be a greater emphasis on these trees. In addition, fruit trees are also grown, especially the "easy-to-grow" (for example, pawpaw and guava).
