Border forests under siege

Malawi continues to lose trees at an alarming rate  despite banning illegal charcoal production and deploying soldiers to guard waning forests.

The country loses about 33 000 hectares of forest annually, shows a study by Patrick Kambewa and Henry Utila.

Some forest raiders smuggle the charcoal and timber to Tanzania.

This has left forests along the Songwe River between Malawi and Tanzania shrinking.

A tour of depleted forests along Malawi and Tanzania reveals the buzzing illicit cross-border trade in forest produce.

Secret business

Mercy Lupakisho, 45, from Mwenengolongo Village in the border district of Karonga, has known no other business for the past decade.

She refuses to sell her charcoal to Malawian customers, but transports it across the border.

Gathering her charcoal bags at the Songwe Border, Lupakisho said: “A 50-kilogramme bag sold at K14 000 [about $8] in Malawi fetches almost triple the price, around $20, which is more profitable.

This helps her support her family and educate the children, she said.

Lupakisho is among smugglers profiting from Malawi’s waning forests.

While her country is losing forests faster than they are being replenished, Tanzania’s Forest Regulations of 2004 strictly prohibit felling trees for timber and charcoal.

As such, Tanzanians along the border rely on charcoal and timber from Malawi.

The smugglers, who pass the Songwe Border Post before sunrise, are fast wiping out trees in Malawi.

Lupakisho narrated: “We enter Tanzania early in the morning before offices open. The guards let us pass. Sometimes, I give them around K3 000.

“When we get to Tanzania, nobody asks a question, especially if the charcoal is from Malawi.”

The charcoal trader says charcoal has becoming scarce for the past five years.

“The natural forests have been depleted, so we have to travel long distances to fetch charcoal,” she said.

Similarly smuggled and scarce is timber.

Kamunkhwala Tembo, from the forestry office, said the smugglers are often hostile towards forestry and police officers.

He is concerned that Tanzanian forestry and police officers leave charcoal smugglers to operate freely “if the charcoal originates from Malawi”.

He stated: “If you look at the Tanzanian side, you will see that the forests are intact, unlike on the Malawian side where not even one is remaining.

“Some Tanzanian vendors come to remote villages and contract local Malawians to produce charcoal for them. Once they get the desired tonnage, they use uncharted routes to smuggle it into Tanzania.”

According to Tembo, attempts to halt charcoal trafficking are frustrated by vendors who alert each other before forestry patrollers pounce.

“The vendors are consistently communicating, making it very hard to intercept their smuggling routes,” he said.

The forest protectors also work with community leaders to combat the illegal business, but many chiefs seldom discourage charcoal production.

Traditional Authority Mwakaboko of Karonga said charcoal trafficking is rampant along the border because “Tanzanian vendors are taking advantage of the weak enforcement of our laws to deplete our forests”.

Low political will

Tembo said lack of political will frustrates Malawi’s fight to save trees even though the Forestry Act that Parliament amended in 2020 prescribes stiffer penalties for illegal production, sales and trafficking of charcoal and timber.

“When we arrest the vendors, we get calls from politicians demanding release of some people,” he bemoaned.

African problem

There are similar concerns in Uganda where President Yoweri Museveni in May 2023 issued a ban on commercial charcoal production, but charcoal dealers devised cunning strategies to stay in business.

In the lush forests of Northern Uganda, traders use bicycles and motorcycles to transport charcoal from remote villages to the towns where it is loaded into waiting trucks.

Calvin Okello, 32, is one of the cyclists who have switched from carrying passengers to the booming charcoal trade.

“I earn more carrying charcoal than shuttling passengers,” he says.

On roads leading to towns, motorcycles are frequently seen carrying three bags.

Robert Mugume, 28, said it is better to buy charcoal bags in Kampala and other towns than risk having the black cargo and truck impounded on the way from the remote villages.

For years, Kenya, which suspended logging in all its forests in 2017, has been importing charcoal from Uganda.

In 2021, the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime named Uganda a significant charcoal producer in East Africa.

Good law, but…

Malawi’s Forestry Act, which requires charcoal producers to obtain licences after submitting reforestation and forestry plans to the Director of Forestry.

The law grants some forest officers the authority to use firearms to protect trees.

Recently, Minister of Natural Resources and Climate Change Michael Usi blamed the high demand for illegal charcoal in urban areas for depleting the country’s forests.

In January, environmentalists criticised the minister for not taking sufficient action to stop deforestation. n

*Masauli reports for Malawi News Agency while Tumwesige works with the New Vision Uganda. This story is supported by the Environmental Reporting Collective (ERC) to trace environmental crimes across borders.