© 2012 AID AFRICA  UK Registered Charity Number 1116336

REFORESTATION

Like so much of Africa, deforestation is a major challenge to food security and community health.  

As the main source of power in the rural areas, trees are felled for cooking fuel, or burnt for charcoal and rarely replaced.  Lack of trees enables easy erosion by wind and water run-off - in fact local people have claimed in bewilderment to be “growing stones” - soil erosion is so serious that some of the land has become a rocky wilderness. Without replenishment, soil loses vigour and moisture as humus and nutrients are lost, crops are diminished, and hunger increases.

The Malawian Government has described the situation as “unsolvable”, but we are committed to do as much as we can locally to mitigate the impact of this increasingly serious problem.

In 2015 we built a central tree nursery on site, and brought together 60 key people from 10 villages to train them in climate change and the importance of trees, planting, care and forest management.

We helped each village build its own tree nursery, and equipped them with plastic planting tubes, seeds and watering cans.

We issued seeds of 4 selected trees:

Mtangatanga for firewood, which

also nourishes the soil with nitrates.

Acacia can be coppiced for firewood

Moringa - high value veg & nutrition

Glycidia - brilliant for green manure.

More than 3000 trees germinated

from this first phase, and it’s

anticipated that each year the

numbers will multiply.

Alongside, we’re promoting clay

stoves which use only 1/3rd of the

wood needed for a traditional fire.

Preparing tubes:

Right: Mixing soils/manure

         Filling tubes

         Watering

Below:Planting seeds

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(Above)  A clay stove using less fuel,

(Below)  Billisoni Village’s Community Tree Nursery

Community Tree Nurseries in Chigwirigwidi Village(above)

 and Mtikhe Village (below)

Training ….