By Temwa Mhone | derickmhone@gmail.com
Maureen Ngaiyaye, 55, a resident of Galeta village, Neno district, has been toiling in vain as her field failed to produce enough food. She could do all the necessary farm work, but her maize kept wilting due to prolonged dry spells.
“We broke our backs and our hearts got broken because we got too little to take my family to the next harvesting season,” Ngaiyaye recalls.
The United Nations World Food Programme reports that rampant environmental degradation has left the country vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including erratic rainfall, dry spells, floods, and droughts.
Gertrude Katsamwa, another villager, says that hot weather and dry spells have dominated growing seasons in recent years. “We have been hoping the weather would get better for our crops, but it got worse each passing year,” she says.
Neno is one of the districts in the southern region where forest cover is being lost at an alarming rate due to charcoal production and other activities.
Statistics from the Ministry of Natural Resources indicates that nearly 97 percent, about nine in every 10 households in the country, use charcoal and firewood for cooking and heating.
Katsamwa says deforestation also worsened the burden faced by women in managing homes.
Women and girls walked long distances to collect enough wood for cooking and heating. “We spent hours in hills and valleys searching for firewood, taking away our productive hours, even denying girls’ right to education because they had to go with us to get more wood,” she says.
However, over 2.7 hectares of Galeta village forest cover has been replenished, and trees are flourishing, enhancing the farmers’ resilience to erratic rains and dry spells.
Since 2021, Ngaiyaye and Katsamwa’s maize yields from a one-acre plot increased from three to 57 bags and five to 60 bags, respectively.
In 2020, under Gwirizano Farmers Field School (FFS), the two women were among those who committed to restoring and conserving the environment through the Malawi Watershed Services Improvement Project (Mwasip), funded by the World Bank in partnership with the Government of Malawi.
Mwasip provides grant schemes to communities to promote land and water conservation interventions to reverse environmental degradation, where over 25 of the 45 hectares of degraded land have been restored.
Apart from erecting check dams, deep trenches, eyebrow basins and swales to harvest rainwater, Galeta communities have intensified tree planting and natural regeneration of trees and shrubs on slopes, idle grounds, their gardens and the 2.7-hectare village forest.
They are sustaining the conservation efforts by doing beekeeping in the forested areas. The initiative reflects the intent of Malawi’s Forestry Amendment Act 2020 and Environmental Management Act 2017, which emphasise sustainable forest management, ecosystem restoration and active community participation.
It also aligns with Malawi’s National Forest Landscape Restoration Strategy, which aims to restore 4.5 million hectares of degraded land by 2030.
The initiative also speaks to Africa’s Agenda 2063 of the African Union, which calls for inclusive and environmentally sustainable growth.
Christopher Thawira, one of the farmers, says environmental conservation has improved the resilience of their crops to erratic rains and dry spells. He says: “Our crops flourish despite having dry spells or erratic rains because of healthy soils that hold moisture, good texture and fertility courtesy of a preserved ecosystem.” The proximity of forests has lessened the burden of long-distance walks that women and girls endured to fetch firewood.
To lessen the pressure on the trees, Ngaiyaye, who is the FFS chairperson, says households are using energy-efficient cooking stoves, which use sticks and do not require the felling of trees.
Ngaiyaye credits the blossoming forest cover to beekeeping. She says: “People are afraid of being stung by bees in the forests. This allows our trees to flourish, thereby supporting all efforts to conserve the environment that enhances our resilience to the effects of climate change, including the cyclones.”
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization reports that beekeeping is a forest-preserving initiative as it reduces deforestation, provides a source of income, nurtures biodiversity and enables adaptation of ecosystems to climate change.
Katsamwa, who is the FFS treasurer, says conserving the environment has provided them with a sustainable source of income as honey fetches good prices on the markets.
Annually, they make about K1.8 million (US$1,043) from producing honey, and members get goats and dividends. The initiative also got them to establish a village bank where they save earnings and get soft loans to live their entrepreneurial dreams.
Ngaiyaye says the honey proceeds have made members economically active. “I have easy access to money. I sell fritters courtesy of the K100 000 (US$ 58) dividend from the group. I also took a loan of K200 000 (US$116) to start a farm produce business whose proceeds are transforming my family’s life for the better,” she says.
They are adding hives in the forest from 34 to 50 in 2026` to boost honey production and the security of trees.
Group Village Head Galeta says beekeeping is the foundation of development projects mushrooming in the area. He says: “It is alleviating poverty as people have money to replace their grass thatched houses with modern ones. We are also harvesting enough food.”
Haswell Mollande, Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy programme officer, says beekeeping provides a direct economic incentive for forest protection, thereby reinforcing the climate-gender nexus in improving household incomes, food security and women’s participation in natural resources governance.
He says: “This shows conservation works best when communities see forests not just as resources to exploit, but as productive assets that support livelihoods, climate resilience and inclusive development at the same time.”
To sustain the initiative, Mwasip provides grants to agri-enterprises to train the farmers to produce and offtake honey. Kirk Agribusiness works with five FFSs in the district, including Gwirizano, to produce more high-quality honey.
Osward Mulenga, Mwasip technical team member, said they are committed to helping communities have economic opportunities while preserving the environment.
“We supported the farmers and agri enterprises with grants to invest in businesses like beekeeping so that they increase their household incomes and market for farmers,” he said.
