Assessment, Conservation and Sustainable Use of Forest Biodiversity

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Conservation and Sustainable Use (sustainable forest management) 29 INTEGRATED FOREST RESOURCES MANAGEMENT AND UTILISATION BY RURAL COMMUNITIES IN MALAWI Samuel Kainja* Forestry Department, Box 30048, Lilongwe 3, Malawi E-mail : skainja@malawi.net, Tel : (265) 771 000, Fax : (265) 772 656 Keywords : participation, sustainable, incentive, deforestation, degradation. From time immemorial, Government of Malawi was the main producer of forest goods and services through Forestry Department. It became clear early 1990’s that Government was not able to produce sufficient forest goods and services single-handed. With the revision of Forestry Policy in 1996, emphasis has now been on creating conducive environment for the active participation of all stakeholders, including rural communities, in forest resources management. In Malawi, local communities are the major beneficially of forest goods and services. Forests goods and services are exploited often in unsustainable way for consumption and for sale. The majority of rural communities are poor and poverty contributes to environmental degradation through unsustainable woodfuel and charcoal production for sale and domestic consumption. Malawi is one of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) . The key problem in dealing with this major stakeholder is how to provide tangible incentives in order to promote active and sustained participation in forest management and at the same time enable them meet their needs. This calls for urgent community empowerment to manage and utilise forest resources in a sustainable way. One of the successful initiatives aimed at promoting community participation in forest management started in 1996 in Mwanza District (Mkamanga, 2001). A total of five villages are involved in Sustainable Management of Indigenous Forest Project. This Project was developed as a joint exercise involving Forestry Department, as a Government institution, the Germany Government as a donor and Wildlife Society of Malawi, a Non-Governmental Organisation, as the implementing agency. With the support of Wildlife Society of Malawi, rural communities have established local institutions that are responsible for planning and implementing development activities that revolve around forest resources management. Rural communities are involved in commercial activities such as bee keeping, guinea fowl raring, tree planting and production of fruit juice from indigenous fruits of Adansonia digitata and Tamarindus indica. The Project has diverted the communities from sorely depending on roadside sale of charcoal and firewood, which was resulting in deforestation and degradation of the forest. Financial gain from commercial activities has become a sustainable incentive for community participation in sustainable conservation of forests. Every month some of the financial gains are used for community development work while some cash is shared among the participants of the Project. As a result, of tree planting and forest management, the forests are now recovering from degradation and deforestation. Reference Mkamanga, G and Chimutu, P. (2001) Sustainable management of indigenous forests : Mwanza East community based natural resources management: Project Evaluation mission; Final evaluation report. 91
Assessment, Conservation and Sustainable Use of Forest Biodiversity 30 MANAGEMENT OF BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY AT TSAMBA FOREST RESERVE J.S. Kamwendo, A.C. Chikuni* NHBG, P.O. Box 528, Zomba, Malawi Central Africa Keywords: Management; sustainable use; Biodiversity; Tsamba; Malawi. Abstract Forests are habitats for a wide range of plant and animal species. They are sources of wild food (e.g. fruits, vegetables, tuber, honey, fodder, insects and meat), medicine, fuelwood, building and construction materials, timber, arts and crafts materials and charcoal. This biodiversity is however under threat due to agricultural expansion, followed by food and fuelwood demands. In addition, forest encroachment for settlement and poaching also pose great threat on the biological diversity. It is on this basis that a project entitled Management of biodiversity in Protected Areas of Malawi funded by GTZ was established. The project is executed in three pilot study areas, namely Tsamba, Ntchisi and Mughese forest reserves. This paper focuses mainly on Tsamba forest reserve because it is where more data has been collected. The objectives of this project are to document all the biodiversity found in these three forest reserves and to address massive loss of useful biodiversity through collaborative management. To fulfill these objectives, local communities around the study area “Tsamba forest reserve” were interviewed using questionnaire, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), transect walks in the forest and construction of quadrats. These methods were used to collect information on composition of the biodiversity in the study area, useful biological diversity and their abundance. Preliminary results of Tsamba forest reserve show that a total of 388 tree, shrub and herbaceous species from 165 and 56 families have been recorded. 10 grass species have also been recorded. A total number of 32 birds from 13 genera, 21 animal, and 83 insect species have been recorded. Out of the 83 insects recorded, only 17 are edible. Tables 1 and 2 show plant and animal species, which are mostly preferred by the local communities around the forest reserve for food, fuel, construction material, timber and making charcoal. Introduction Malawi’s forests occupy 3.6 million hectares of land and 97% of forest cover are indigenous forest, mostly Miombo woodland (DREA, 1994). Of the total forest cover, Mwanza district contributes approximately 231,025 hectares (Anon, 1993a). There are two gazetted forest reserves in Mwanza, Tsamba and Thambani. Tsamba is 3,237 hectares whilst Thambani is 10,670 hectares. This indicates that over 217,118 of Mwanza forest cover is under customary land tenure (Sitaubi, et al, 1995). Mwanza district is in the Southern region of Malawi and has a population of 138,015.The population density of the district is 116 people per square kilometre (Malawi Government, 1998). The people practice subsistence agriculture. They cultivate maize and potatoes for food, tangerines and cotton for sale. Like most Malawians, the people of Mwanza live below the poverty line and as such rely on forestry resources for a living. It is thus not surprising that rural communities around this forest reserve unsustainably collect fruits (e.g. Parinaria curatelifolia, Uapaca kirkiana, Annona senegalensis, Flacourtia indica, Ximenia caffra), vegetables, mushrooms and other non-forest products (e.g. edible insects, birds, rodents and bush meat) to supplement their diet. The forests are also a source of firewood and charcoal. Mwanza district is considered the main charcoal producer in the Southern Region of Malawi. 92
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