By Memory Kutengule Chatonda

Blantyre, August 2, Mana: Community members in Traditional Authority (TA) Kapeni in Blantyre have vowed to continue with environmental conservation works to restore degraded landscapes in the area.

The communities participate in various environmental conservation activities such as tree planting, construction of the swales, check dams and gully reclamation under the Climate Smart Enhanced Public Works Programme (CS-EPWP).

Speaking in an interview during a media tour, Chairperson for Chilambalare Catchment Conservation Committee, Harrison Tsonga, said before they started implementing the activities especially swales under the programme, communities realized low crop yields, which resulted in food insecurity at house hold level. 

“We are usually hit by dry spells which result in low crop yields. To mitigate this, the CS-EPWP has taught us how to conserve our environment through re-afforestation, construction of swales, gully reclamation and check dams.

“In the past, there was also heavy run off during the rainy seasons, our fields were washed away which resulted in low crop yields. Now we use swales to control and collect rain water in our fields and this ensures that our fields have enough ground water and now we can harvest more,” he said.

One of the farmers, Dolla Morris, said communities understand effects that come with climate change, adding that this prompted them to put more efforts in environmentally friendly agricultural practices.

Blantyre District Land Resource Conservation Officer, Charles Mthyoka, said that farmers in Blantyre are seeing the benefit of environmental conservation in their respective catchments.

He said: “In this area, effects of climate change have been very large in the sense that farmers were not harvesting enough because most of the land was degraded with little soil fertility. Since the implementation of this activity farmers now harvest at least enough of their farm produce.”

CS-EPWP is a component under Social Support Resilience Livelihood Programme and is funded by World Bank and other social protection multi donor trust fund.

In Blantyre, the project is being implemented in 15 catchment areas with about 17,200 communities participating in the programme.