By Wanangwa Tembo

Kasungu, October 15, Mana: At around dawn, Maness Banda wakes up together with other women at a village in Kasungu East, heading to a warehouse located at Sub-Traditional Authority Mdunga’s headquarters.

There, they load hoes, picks, panga knives and shovels into a wheelbarrow and trek down to their degraded gardens and nearby deforested landscapes where they would spend their morning.

“Our work involves constructing contour marker ridges in the gardens. Marker ridges are pointers which help us to properly construct ridges across the slopes and prevent soil erosion.

“We also dig trenches which help to trap water. These help to retain moisture in the gardens so that crops can withstand prolonged dry spells,” Banda says.

According to her, the community is aware of the realities of climate change and its impact on agricultural activities.

She says the changing climatic pattern has largely threatened food security amongst many households in the village hence the need to engage in environmental conservation initiatives.

“We are also into planting trees using nurseries which we prepare on our own. This time around, we are busy preparing tree nurseries in readiness for the planting season.

“Again, we promote natural regeneration of forests so that our deforested areas should be green again as they used to be in the past,” she says.

From a distance, the work the women do could culturally be considered a man’s job looking at the lifestyles of many communities in the district.

But Banda challenges this thinking.

“Environmental conservation is everyone’s responsibility. And for us women, this is a must because if you reflect on the many effects of climate change, we are the most affected.

“A woman will walk long distances fetching water and firewood. When there is no food in the house, the children look up to their mother. So we are at the centre of this,” she says.

Banda and her friends are among the 7, 000 female participants in the Climate Smart Public Works Programme (CSPWP), a component of the Social Support and Livelihood Resilience Programme in Kasungu district.

Government is implementing the programme through the National Local Government Finance Committee with support from the World Bank and the Multi-Donor Trust Fund.

Further east of the district at Mpherere in Traditional Authority Simlemba, conservation works are also in progress with communities involved in constructing check dams, soak pits and similar conservation assets.

Mary Thole, 45, from the area says as women, they have resolved to actively participate in conservation activities to restore their degraded landscapes hoping they can contribute to fighting food insecurity in their households.

She says while there are immediate monetary benefits of their participation in that they receive MK38, 400 after working for 24 days, the communities also understand the long term impact of their work.

She says: “Yes, we get immediate monetary benefits by participating in the conservation works. But more important to us as a community is that we have owned this initiative because we know the long term benefits.

“There is high interest amongst the communities to join the works. Given that chance, many would join us.”

The interventions under the CSPWP are centred on land and soil conservation following the catchment approach where a number of interventions are implemented.

These include construction of assets such as swales, stone bands, ridge alignment, marker ridging, planting vertiver grass and fast growing species through nursery establishment, and promotion of natural regeneration of trees.

All these help in the reduction of soil erosion and improvement of soil moisture retention that helps in plant growth, thereby reducing land degradation and deforestation.

Environmental District Officer for Kasungu, Herbert Bolokonya notes that the gully control measures help farmers to turn unproductive areas into productive land while the constructed storm water drains assist to reduce uncontrolled runoff.

“The knowledge and trainings that are given to the participants are designed to provide a ripple effect in the replication of interventions into their fields,” he says.

Bolokonya says the interventions under the CSPWP are helping to reduce massive deforestation and general land degradation in the district.

“Forests are experiencing high deforestation rate estimated at 2.8 percent representing an annual average loss of 250,000 hectares of forest cover. As the statistics say, land degradation and soil erosion is on the negative trend and is supposed to be corrected,” Bolokonya says.

He touts the CSPWP as a huge contribution towards restoration of the degraded landscapes.

Overall, the CSPWP aims at restoring the environment to shrug off climate change shocks that threaten people’s livelihood while at the same time building livelihood resilience for the poor and vulnerable people.

At least 80 percent of the country’s 20 million plus population live in the rural areas engaging in farming as their most dependable source of income and food, hence, land degradation could be a significant hindrance to their socioeconomic wellbeing and the country’s overall economic development and achievement of the 2030 sustainable development targets. 

Studies show that population growth places huge demand on natural systems with more land being converted to agriculture and more forests being harvested for the wood fuel supply.

Unsustainable land management practices and shortage of funding for environmental management are blamed for causing environmental degradation.

Globally, studies show that at least 20 to 40 percent of world’s total land experienced degradation thus affecting nearly half of the global population. 

In Kasungu, forests have been cleared largely due to agriculture expansion and tobacco farming activities causing massive landscape degradation that threatens food security for the district’s 1 million people.

The district has the largest number of estates in the country and is one of the leading tobacco producers.

However, through the CSPWP which is now in its third cycle, communities have resolved to restore the destroyed landscapes back to their former glory and counter threats on agriculture, their means of survival.

Desk Officer for the project at Kasungu District Council, Ignatius Lipato says the initiative is designed to enroll any household that has labour.

“The interest the women have shown in embracing conservation is very encouraging and gives great hope for the project’s sustainability.

“Conservation of the environment is everyone’s responsibility. So it is encouraging that both men and women are well represented which is good for the project’s sustainability,” he says.

Lipato points out that not all work under the programme is paid for, saying the programme designates some 10 days per cycle where members work voluntarily as their community contribution towards the initiative.

“This arrangement ensures that there is community ownership of the conservation activities. Everything is for them and they must own it.

“Worthy noting is that the participants are aware of this and they take it very seriously,” he says.  

On her part, Assistant Forestry Officer for Kasungu, Leah Ndovi, says community contribution has largely helped to improve the survival rate of trees which are planted in the catchments.

She says unlike in previous interventions where emphasis was only on planting trees, the CSPWP has helped to ensure that the planted trees are taken care of and as a result, most of them survive.

Kasungu district has 24 catchments where conservation activities are taking place and has a total of 23, 242 participants with at least 41 percent women.

Malawi has committed to achieving land degradation neutrality by 2030, rehabilitating 4.5 million hectares of degraded land for crop production and restoring 820 000 hectares of native forests by 2030.

It is the resolve Kasungu women have made to put their efforts together and contribute towards these national targets while fortifying their households from the threats of hunger and poverty.