Mzuzu — Around 1964, Malawi’s first Head of State introduced an ambitious project to turn one of the mountain ranges in the country into a forest. What followed was the planting of trees—mostly exotic pine—into 53,000 hectares of woodland, the second-largest manmade forest in Africa.
While the initial idea was to use the trees to support a potential pulp and paper industry, the government, later on, leased the forest through concessions to private companies and indigenous Malawians, both sharing 60 and 40 percent respectively.
But heavy harvesting in the area has prompted government to rearrange the agreements with the timber millers and on some occasions, suspended harvesting in the forest to control deforestation.
Mutual co-existence gone sour
Chikangawa forest lies within a mountain range in Northern Malawi. The Northern and Southern portions of the range are separated by a lower saddle of hills. The town of Mzuzu is located on the saddles western slope, and Malawi’s M5 Highway crosses the saddles to connect to Nkhata Bay, on Lake Malawi. The range is also a source of some of the rivers in the country.
Over the years, over 400-plus Malawian timber millers and some private companies have co-existed in the forest until recently when the former claims they discovered their counterparts were being given a lion share. Since 2013, the two groups have been at loggerheads with the government forestry officials backing the foreign companies.
Paul Nthambazale heads the 35 member group called Reformed Timber Millers Union, a brainchild of Timber Millers Corporative Union which disbanded after government canceled their permits. After the group sued government, they reached a consensus and came up with a new agreement that is running up to now.
“After the government engaged us, we came up with various recommendations including forming a new agreement and that’s why we came up with the reformed group,” Nthambazale told Ubuntu Times in an interview. “Another issue was on the area of the land. In the new agreement, we are entitled to about 4,000 hectares.”
He however said despite their grouping employing 1,500 people and contributing to the local economy, government has been favoring timber milling companies owned by foreigners who were also given concession in the forest. He added the 4000 hectares of trees in their allotment may last in the next two years.
“Many people in Malawi buy from us because the other concessionaires don’t sell to the local Malawians since they mostly export. The people we buy fuel, food for our workers and spare parts for our machine from benefit from our work. So you can see that many Malawians benefit from us,” Nthambazale said.
He said in the current 4000 agreement, 90 percent of their potion is bare land; nine percent is composed of small trees and not mature for harvest adding that only one percent has mature trees.
Nthambazale recalled when they started having problems with the agreement in 2013. They were then entitled to 10,000 hectares of the forest but said the piece had only 2700 hectares of Pine trees and 500 hectares of Bluegum trees.
Less trees, more conflict
“The government told us that it was going to source trees from the other concessionaires because the government had no trees. The government officials admitted that they made a mistake by giving too much land to the other concessionaires.
Nthambazale said when the government started giving concessionaires to foreign-based companies in 1999 more trees were given to the foreigners with others securing up to 20,000 hectares land of fully covered and mature trees unlike them.
“And Raiply (one of the private companies) is owned by just a single person. Another foreign-based company was given 6000 hectares while the third one was given 4000 hectares. You can see that more than half of Chikangawa was given to foreign-based foreigners. What we are saying is our constitution says 60 percent of business should be given to indigenous black Malawians but what is happening is different and that is painful.”
He said they will keep on protesting until they see change not only in timber but other businesses as well where he claims foreigners are being given preferential treatment. He believes some government officials are cashing in on the resource.
“What we want is all foreigners should be given a piece of land and they should plant and start harvesting. That’s what we call investment. All the trees planted by our grandfathers should be left alone to the local Malawians,” he added.
But According to Director of Forest, Stella Gama, the 2016 forestry and the public sector reforms instituted by government allow the Department of Forestry to engage the private sector in the management of forests in Malawi under forest plantations agreements or concessions.
“This is normal but also of advantage to the Ministry to ensure sustainable management of forests, improved industrial forestry and also enhance forest sector financing. Since 1999, the Department has facilitated the signing and operationalization of a number of agreements with a number of private companies,” Gama said citing Raiply, AKL Timbers, Pyxus Agriculture, Kawandama Hills, and Total Land Care as having a stake in over 30000 hectares in the plantation.
She said her department has engaged the Reformed Timber Millers Union in a 6000-hectare concession and that Malawians have been awarded timber extraction rights on an annual basis through annual licenses.
But Gama refuted allegations that the government is favoring foreigners and said the problem is rooted in harvesting more trees than the millers can replace.
“Harvesting of the areas outside the Raiply Concession area has happened unsustainably considering that the licensees were harvesting more than what the Department could restore. It’s not correct to say that government is favoring others. It’s just that the mode of engagement is varied. Others opted for long term arrangements while the locals preferred short term licenses,” Gama said.
“The challenge we have faced with the annual licensing arrangement is that the local concessionaires harvest more than they have been allocated and consequently more than what the Department can restore. To address this, individuals have been requested to enter into plantation management agreements with Ministry so that they have rights to manage and harvest timber in the Viphya.”
She said the agreements were through open procurement processes and approximately 10,000 hectares will be under small scale operators.
“Each of these will sign an agreement with the Ministry and will have obligations and exclusive use rights which will have to be respected. The main objective is to ensure that the Viphya is restored whilst ensuring stakeholders participate in the process,” she said.
Clifford Mkanthama, Climate Change, and Biodiversity expert said the indigenous loggers need to follow whatever was agreed in their memorandum of understanding but said the current protests are disappointing.
“Raiply is being victimized by the local loggers who are harvesting from their concessions because Raiply has to manage its own concession. I think the agreement is when concessionaires are getting a piece of land for harvesting, they also have to replant. But the local indigenous loggers are not doing what is contained in the concession agreement, that’s something they need to look at and abide by since that’s what they agreed with the government of Malawi,” he said.
Disappearing trees
Mkanthama said there has been an argument that deforestation levels are reducing in the country but noted this is because people do not have trees to cut anymore and not necessarily because people have stopped cutting down trees.
“They don’t have resources to harvest. People are now scrambling for the little resources available and when it comes to timber in Malawi the land that has enough trees is the plantation,” he said noting that most of the 53,000 hectares of the pine trees have also been destroyed by fire and people.
“People who just harvest without replenishing through replanting have found themselves in an awkward situation where they don’t have trees to harvest hence bothering other concessionaires. This is where the conflict is coming in but also the construction industry is not shrinking in Malawi. Now, with expansion of construction industry, which demands a lot of timber and then the timber is not there, there is just so much pressure on the resources,” he added.