Deforestation Increasing the Rate of Climate Change in Malawi

Poverty is underrated as contributing to many environmental challenges in developing countries. If you come across people cutting down trees to burn charcoal,  selling firewood and timber and ask them why they are partaking in such kind of activities that destroy

Poverty is underrated as contributing to many environmental challenges in developing countries. If you come across people cutting down trees to burn charcoal or selling firewood and timber and ask them why they are partaking in such kinds of activities that destroy the environment, the answer is simple: poverty. They are making a livelihood to sustain themselves and their families. 

In Malawi, the major environmental challenge encountered is deforestation. Despite having several causes of deforestation, like the high population equivalent to the land available, drought, and structural development, poverty has taken a great lead in causing deforestation. 

With a greater population living in extreme poverty and the growth in the cost of living in the country, this has indirectly increased the rate of deforestation. People are encroaching on protected forests, cutting down trees to earn survival income. 

Over the last two decades, there has been an increase in the occurrence of extreme weather events. These weather changes have been identified by prolonged cold weather, extremely hot weather, delays in the rainy season, and heavy rains. This year, more than ever, most districts in Malawi have been affected by floods on account of climate change, with the consequent effects of human activities, mostly deforestation. 

Extensive deforestation has increased the rate of runoff, and heavy rainfall occurring in high-lying areas has caused floods in low-lying areas. People lost their houses, many farms flooded, and yields were washed away. As much as people could fear being homeless, food insecurity has been the product of the devastating flooding events. 

Extreme weather conditions make the soil unsuitable for crop cultivation, and most of the seeds planted are washed away in the severe runoffs. This persists, preventing substantial farm yield and productivity further contributing to food insecurity in the region.

With these challenges at hand, what policies are governing the change to overcome and eradicate the challenges of climate change? 

As a nation, it has been operating on a series of legislative sectoral frameworks and strategies to integrate environment and climate change management in socio-economic development activities. Among these legislative sectoral frameworks is Vision 2020. 

Through the 90’s and early 2000s, we were hoping for a better Malawi come the year 2020. The Malawi Vision 2020 strategy aspired for a technologically driven middle-income economy while providing an enabling framework for addressing climate change and other environmental challenges in a comprehensive manner. 

Come the year 2020, the challenges of climate change have struck more than the years before. Recently, Malawi is working towards Vision 2063. Will the country overcome the challenges of climate change by the year 2063? 

With the recurring natural disasters and climate change, Malawi 2063 aims to develop systems to diminish the increase in environmental degradation by incorporating disaster risk reduction, sustainable development and planning, climate change adaptation, and sustainable livelihood through Green Economy measures. 

Implementation of the Malawi 2063 policy can help bring back the ecosystem. With the cross-cutting issues of high population, sustainable development and planning will ensure the proper use of land and decrease the encroaching of forest-protected areas for farming.

Improving people’s livelihoods will promote people to other income sources rather than depending on destroying the environment. There is a need to conduct civic education to bring awareness to people on the challenges and impact of climate change and the measures that are to be put in place to overcome those challenges. Together we can build a better Malawi.