Triumph against adversity

The winding of Golomoti road in the highlands of Dedza and Ntcheu makes quite an interesting travel to a tourist. The height creates saintly scenery of Salima plains below and also a distant blue paradise of Lake Malawi.

But for an environmentalist, the Masasa-Golomoti-Monkey Bay Road exposes a terrible story of human destruction of nature. Bald hills stand, helplessly leaning on each other with backs of emptiness.

Knee-high vegetation, especially wilting glass, dance to the harsh Dedza winds without protection of trees.

“We used to have fierce forest in these hills,” says Onesi Chimbalanga from James village, group village head Mganja, T/A Kachindamoto, Dedza.

She recalls when she was 13, while in primary school; it was unthinkable for children to walk alone to school. That was in the late 80s.

“There was always a fear of animals. In fact, our villages experienced constant attacks of these wild animals,” she says.

Today, 38, married and with four children, Chimbalanga—together with almost 530 people in her village—see nothing in the hills but baldness.

“At first, the forest was mostly the source of firewood and relish for instance mushrooms and hunting.

“But over the years, with increasing population and diminishing soil fertility people started searching new grounds of cultivation.

“Again, with increased need for income, the hills became source of money through charcoal making,” she says.

Even Dedza district commissioner Siphiwe Mauwa agrees that her district is a major producer of charcoal in the Central Region with villages like James being on the lead.

Depleted and bare, the wrath of these hills is already rearing its ugly head on the culprits.

“We can’t find mushrooms anymore. We travel distances and spend hours just to get a small pile of firewood,” says Christina Chimdimba, a local from the villages.

What Chimdimba advances agrees with the speech President Joyce Banda gave at the World Energy Forum in Dubai last year.

She said: “In Malawi, for example, close to 90 percent of the energy used is biomass and in almost all the cases, women are responsible for collecting the firewood.

“However, with population growth and resultant deforestation, the distance travelled to collect firewood is getting longer.”

As a result, adds Chimdimba, with poor yields in the fields due to unreliable rainfall patterns, most of the villagers struggle heavily to make both ends meet.

Men, too, agree that gone are the golden hunting days when they would sneak into the thickets and come back with something for relish.

The tragic effects people of James are suffering because of their actions—wanton cutting down of trees—is a tragedy that cuts across regions and districts in the country. It is a national adversity. But as renowned economist Emily Boserup argued that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’, Malawians are not suffering the tragedy in silence.

They are devising different adaptation mechanisms not just to beat off the affliction but most importantly to survive and succeed over it. And James village is leading the way.

Battered by the problem of domestic energy and income generation, a group of 34 villagers—five men and 29 women—are making cook stoves that are making a difference.

Chimbalanga is a member of the group.

“We were trained by Concern Universal which is running a project here. Basically, we make stoves, popularly called Chitetezo mbaula, out of the earth which is helping us a lot. There is nothing we are buying in the production. It is only our labour. With it, we are able to cook for a day with just three branches of fire. A pile of firewood that could last us three days takes two weeks now to finish.

“Beyond that, we are also able to sale these stoves to other villages. With a single stove selling at K400, we are able to generate income for our family’s needs,” says Chimbalanga.

In a week, the group manages 57 cook stoves and according to Tereza Chisale, a member, the urge to work together has greatly united the village.

“We are not just making cook stoves. Because we still need firewood, we are also in tree planting exercise. We run a big tree nursery. We have already started planting trees in some of the bare hills. So far we have managed 4 000,” she says.

The group, according to GVH Mganja, is changing James village.

“Some of us didn’t have enough knowledge on issues of climate change and how we can fight back. Today, I am happy that I am knowledgeable and, as a chief, I will do whatever it takes to support them,” he says.

Being an NGO-driven project, the obvious challenge is sustainability. But the group advances that they have the knowledge that will not phase with years.

Surely, if well sustained, travelling the highlands of Dedza will not just be fun and pleasing to tourists. Even environmentalist, too, will find it joyous.