Africa: An Enduring Commitment

The life of a typical poor Malawian villager for generations has always depended on a combination of his hoe, the ecosystem around him, and above all, the rain that nature provided. At the beginning of a season, he would plant his crops resting assured that the reliable rainfall season would see it through to harvesting time supported by natural soil fertility. Forests, on the other hand, provided other products and services to support life. The harvest would be enough for the household until the following harvest and life went on. This was the case decades ago.

Today, the business-as-usual scenario of relying on the hoe, the ecosystem, and most importantly the rains for survival, no longer works. The rains have become unpredictable, the seasons confused, forests have disappeared, extreme weather events are common, droughts have become frequent, new crop pests and diseases have emerged and malaria has renewed its momentum. The poor Malawian villager is left bewildered over what has befallen his livelihood as the once reliable traditional ways of survival have become inappropriate in the face of new challenges. This predicament is not confined to the poor Malawian farmer but is felt in many regions, especially in the developing world.

The outside world is fully aware that climate change is largely responsible for the suffering of these poor Malawian farmers amongst many others elsewhere. Many initiatives are in place by many players that aim at addressing the problem of climate change through mitigation and adaptation strategies. The Clinton Hunter Development Initiative (CHDI) is one such player that has decided to extend its fight against climate change by working with rural communities of Dowa and Neno districts of central and southern Malawi respectively, in a Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) program.

The program bordering on carbon sequestration through community-owned forestry and agro-forestry land-use systems, has significantly increased community awareness and understanding of the once-less-understood paradigm of climate change including its implications on their livelihoods and how the communities can reposition themselves to safeguard their livelihoods. Through the program named "Trees of Hope," courtesy of CHDI, entire communities have been reached with climate change messages and over 1,000 farmers are registered with the program, managing over 1 million fruit and non-fruit trees extending over 1,000 hectares in total.

These farmers are also set to access carbon finance by trading their carbon credits, currently estimated at over 150,000 tons, on the voluntary market facilitated by CHDI besides deriving other ecosystem benefits like soil and water conservation, promotion and protection of biodiversity, soil fertility improvement and many other tree-based products and services. Through the fruit-trees (mango and citrus) the communities have hope for another income stream through marketing of the fruit products besides improvement of the nutritional status of the households through consumption of the same.

With each tree these poor farmers plant in the Trees of Hope project, hope is actually planted for a better future courtesy of the Clinton Foundation.

Commodius Nyirenda is the program manager for CHDI’s Payment for Ecosystem Services Program.