Community Commits to Climate Action
Standing tall to a call for climate action, as demanded by the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG XIII) number 13, the Tilimbike Nursery Club in the area of Traditional Authority Njolomole in Ntcheu district is planting tree seedlings to replace trees on bare land due to wanton deforestation.
Saukani Chikalema chairs a 41-member nursery club which is dominated by women (34). So far the club has planted about 4172 tree seedlings.
According to Elina Patrick, one of the 34 female members of the club, the club has more female members because, in the wake of food shortage emanating from climate related shocks, it is women that suffer as they have to provide food for the children when the man of the house is not often at home.
“Women run our households and it is the women who ensure that there is food, firewood and even water in the house. So leaving the fight against climate change to men would make us women losers, this is why we are taking the climate change issues seriously by joining the nursery clubs,” she says.
Chikalema says World Vision has been crucial to their setup as they started first with tree nursery management training. Later they made shades, collected manure and got some polythene tubes for the tree seedlings.
“World Vision gave us a starting point. They trained us as most of the members did not have the basic tree nursery management skills. So far World Vision also provided the polythene tubes for us to be able to make the tree seedlings,” he says.
“So we are currently fully committed to planting all the trees this season as we intend to hit a target of 150,000 trees in five years,” he adds.
Steven Nyembele is a forestry guard for the area. He also works closely with the nursery clubs where he also shares his expertise with the club's members.
He says so far the community struggles even to fetch firewood as most trees were cut wantonly leaving most land bare.
“Most of this land is bare, hence we experience speedy runoff. But I am glad that with the capacity that World Vision has shared with the farmers, we are bound to plant more trees to cover for the trees that have been cut,” says Nyembele.
The nursery club is geared to making at least 100,000 tree seedlings by the end of five years from now.
World Vision is implementing a Restore Africa Project that aims to enhance livelihoods, food security, and resilience to climate change by restoring ecosystem services and improving the management of agricultural, pastoral, and forest management.
The Global EverGreening Alliance and its members have joined forces in the biggest small-scale farmer-driven land restoration project: Restore Africa. This program will accelerate and massively scale up the adoption of Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) and other complementary Evergreening practices in Malawi and other African countries.
By restoring degraded landscapes and promoting sustainable agriculture, the project seeks to enhance the resilience of local communities while mitigating greenhouse gas emissions through enhanced carbon sequestration.