Most of the work I am doing is with the local committees. These committees exist out of local villagers who are trying to make a difference. The committees I am working with are all focused on Natural Resources, most of them VNRMC’s (Village Natural Resource Management Committee). The  members have to work with minimal resources and are dependent on the support of the local chief to achieve something.
 
Most members never have been out of their village and a lot of them barely have  gone to school, this causes a lack of knowledge and management skills to effectively run the committee. Here for most of the workshops I have been facilitating the past 9 months were to enlarge their knowledge about forestry and ecosystems and improve their management skills.
 
To give the committees the opportunity to exchange their knowledge with committees in other areas and to inspire them we brought 12 representatives of the committees and 1 chief to Zomba. Quite a challenge since most of the representatives never been out of their home area, stand alone ever slept in a lodge with showers, doors with locks and all kinds of luxury. And most of my representatives are female and they can’t leave their babies and toddlers behind. We rented a minibus to transport the people, babies and toddlers and while I was sitting in front with my colleague, the forestry officer, I felt like a teacher going on a schooltrip with a bunch of very excited children. Singing, laughing and chatting non-stop during the 7 hour drive up to Zomba. During this drive I again was reminded about the role we, female volunteers, have in Malawi. My colleague translated some of the  conservations and a lot of them were about the women telling their toddlers to work hard and go to school so they can grow up to be just like me… Especially the mothers telling their daughters not to give up, to take example out of me, because for them I am the proof a woman can achieve something and be independent. It is something that put’s quite some pressure on us. In Malawi I am not only ecologist, climate adaptation advisor, manager, accountant
and facilitator, I am also a role model and feminist. 24/7. A role you get involuntarily just by working and living in Malawi. But more about that later. 
  
In Zomba they followed a three day workshop facilitated by LEAD. LEAD is working on a climate adaptation project in the catchment area of Lake Chilwa since 2008. A lot of the activities we are doing in our districts are based on the  successes of this project. During the workshop we taught the representatives more about reforestation, conservation agriculture, monitoring of wildlife and management. And we included a fieldtrip to a committee in
Machinga that achieved a lot on forestation and conservation agriculture. The committee showed our representatives around, discussed activities and measurements that are successful and danced and sang the whole day long. For us a great day in the field with a lot of Malawian culture and off course the women had to give us some dance lessons, which caused a lot of hilarity among the Malawians.  
 
The workshop was hugely successful and caused quite a revolution in my district. Most of the chiefs in my project area are corrupt and/or lazy. They don’t step up against offender who cut trees or open vegetable gardens in
protected forests. Contrarily, they give away these areas in exchange for money or are cutting down the trees themselves. In Zomba the committees saw what happened and what they could achieve when they have strong leaders, who respect the law and give support. After the Zomba workshop my committees stood up against their chiefs, demanding by-laws and the end of corruption. I almost felt sorry for the chiefs, who were with the 5 of them against almost 50 very angry and frustrated women. But we made a huge victory. The chiefs confessed there
mistakes and together we are now going to work on the formulation and implementation of by-laws on natural resources, sanitation, gender, HIV/AIDS, corruption and education in all my villages (22) and some neighboring villages. For me a huge amount of work since I have to facilitate and manage the whole process, but I am very excited about the achievement and, finally, I have most of the officers in the district active and cooperating. In a next blog I will tell more about these by laws and the importance of them for the development of Nsanje.


Off  course I wouldn’t want to deny anyone the opportunity to watch our dancing  skills, here for I uploaded a video that gives an impression of the workshop we did  with the committees in Zomba and Machinga. You can watch the video on the By Nature You Tube channel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbqgrx3sTcc

Over the last decades the biodiversity in Malawi has decreased massively, mainly as a result of a dramatic loss of habitats . Unsustainable land use practices cause fragmentation of populations and habitats and isolation of remaining communities. Agriculture, urbanization and human settlements are the major forms of land use, with immense effects on nature and biodiversity.

Biodiversity
For the ordinary Malawian, biodiversity means sources of livelihood. Nature offers food, honey, income, energy, medicine and cultural services. They believe nature and biodiversity are God-given and therefore unlimited. Luckily the awareness is growing that nature is not to be taken for granted. Local communities do see the necessity of managing and taking care of nature.

In the past, Malawi had quite a few special (endemic) species, not only in the lake (700 endemic Cichlid species and 15% of the world's freshwater fish) but also on terrestrial level. Unfortunately, today there is a lack of knowledge of the distribution and the status of many endemic and/or rare species in Malawi. To give an impression of Malawi’s biodiversity and its protection:

• The total number of terrestrial plant species in Malawi is not known but available records indicate that there are approximately 6000 plant species, of which 89 are vulnerable, 14 endangered, and 25 critically endangered species. Approximately 114 plant species are known to grow only very locally in Malawi, but none of these are formally protected. Only eleven plant species have legal protection in Malawi (2002 IUCN Red Data List of Threatened Plants).
• 140 species of reptiles are recorded in Malawi. Very little is known of their conservation status. Twelve species are thought to be endemic to Malawi.
• There are about 648 species of birds, 456 of which are resident. Over a third of all bird species in Malawi is considered to be uncommon or rare and should be of long-term conservation concern. 94 birds in Malawi are restricted-range species, found in only one or a few biomes.
• About 188 species of mammals have been recorded in Malawi. Seven of those - African wild dog, cheetah, lion, African elephant, black rhinoceros, red-bellied coast squirrel and chequered elephantshrew - are listed in the 1996 IUCN Red Data List of Threatened Species.

Protection of Nature
In the 1920s the Malawian government set up protected areas as a conservation measure for its unique ecosystems, habitats and species. Nowadays three main categories of protected areas (national parks, wildlife reserves and forest reserves) together cover approximately 20% of the total land area in Malawi.

That sounds like an awful lot. But in reality the plants and animals in these areas are far from fully protected. All Malawian parks suffer from poaching, illegal felling of trees and charcoal burning, illegal fishing and opening of vegetable gardens . Poachers use awful traps; when wounded animals like elephants go berserk in the neighboring villages, the only solution is to kill them. Another way of poaching is to set the forest on fire; when animals have no way to hide, they are an easy catch.

There are laws against poaching and other illegal activities in the protected areas. But offenders often get away easily. The punishment for illegal cutting of wood, for example, consists of confiscation of the tools. This is a huge deal for the poor farmer, who takes a few pieces of wood for his own family. But it does not really harm offenders who take huge stocks of wood for the market. Officially these offenders can be sent to jail, but in reality this rarely happens. The same goes for poachers. Catching a poacher is difficult. The punishment is sentence to jail, but there are not nearly enough rangers  to patrol the large areas . Some reserves and parks are fenced, which is effective against poaching but also prevents animals from migrating.

Solutions
Solving these issues is difficult. Many illegal activities in protected areas are linked to poverty and a weak government. Can you punish hungry people for catching birds to eat? When Lake Chilwa, an international protected bird area under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, almost dried up in 2011, fishermen and their families were starving. Some migrated to other areas, but the remaining fishermen survived by eating birds. Can you really put someone in jail for simply trying to survive? And how do you distinguish between a poacher, who kills for money, and a farmer poaching for sustenance? Isn’t it better to teach the latter alternative ways of livelihood, so he does not need to poach anymore? As long as the government is as weak as it is and as long as the traditional chiefs are corrupt, there won’t be a solution on these issues.

Luckily more and more Malawians do recognize the problems and step up against their chiefs, demanding by-laws and protection of their land. They work hard to recover forests and degraded land, and to change agriculture methods. I see it happening in my own project area as we speak, and gives me reason to be hopeful. It still is a long way, however, until these strong local people will truly influence the government and get their so much needed support.