Vast swaths of a once-fertile country have become wastelands and life for rural Malawians is now even tougher, reports Nicole Johnston
Malawi’s rural poor don’t know much about the science of climate change, but they know how it is affecting them: a slow slide deeper into poverty in an inexorable cycle of heat, hunger and HIV/Aids.
Farmers tell tales of once-fertile soil that now yields very little; of rains that don’t come on time or arrive in floods; and of rivers once rich in fish now too shallow and hot to provide this valuable source of protein.
In Balaka, in the south, the elders notice the changes most. Manesi David doesn’t know how old she is but grown men call her gogo.
“For six years I’ve noticed this change in the weather. The rains have changed; now we have hunger every year. In the past, the sun was not so hot,” David says. “Malaria is increasing and because the temperature is rising people get tired more easily. People are getting old very quickly nowadays because they work so hard.”
David is part of a new irrigation project run by the Balaka Livelihood Security programme, which works with farmers to mitigate the effects of climate change. The programme digs wells and uses treadle pumps to irrigate the fields of its 78 members, each of whom has 100m2 under cultivation. The group grows sweet potatoes, pumpkins and maize.
The village headman, Yohane Tsamba, reads a newspaper when he can afford one and avidly listens to the radio. He knows that “many factories overseas use coal and they have destroyed nature because they put fumes into the atmosphere”.
“Most of our mountains no longer have trees because we’ve cut them down. Generations are still coming, and what will they have?”
Most villagers attribute the change to a problem closer to home: “I think the rainfall is becoming unpredictable because we have cut down trees to burn charcoal,” says Paulo Mkaka (68).
Across Malawi, vast swaths have become a wasteland of tree stumps felled for firewood, making charcoal and firing bricks. As the climate has changed and crops have failed, many people have turned to the forests for income.
Tereza Makowa (45) worries about the Shire River, just 500m from her fields. “Our river was deep but now it is shallow. We’re afraid it may dry up altogether.”
The river is also more prone to flooding, dumping huge amounts of water from areas upstream. “In the past there were areas that got flooded once in 10 years, and then it was an event. Now [it has flooded] every year since 2002. The water is coming much higher and even the crocodiles come up into our croplands, so we cannot walk around freely.”
The last flood was in March and spelled devastation for the farmers. “One night it flooded without warning even though it hadn’t rained here. All our crops were washed away. I had to buy more seeds and I didn’t have money, so I had to go work in someone else’s fields. When the water receded I planted again but that crop did badly because of drought,” says Mary Zuze (54).
Balaka is also on a major trucking route, and many women are driven by hunger to sell sex to the drivers en route to Beira in Mozambique or Zomba in Malawi.
“Poverty and HIV are the same thing,” says Makowa. “Most women don’t have anything else to sell, so they sell sex. In our project we encourage each other not to take those shortcuts for food and money, because they will lead us to death.”
“HIV prevalence in this area is 18% to 20%, compared with a national average of about 14%,” says Elastro Milimbo, manager of the Balaka Livelihood Security programme.
The Environmental Monitoring Group and Oxfam will host a pan-African climate-change hearing on October 5 in Cape Town. Chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, it will hear from witnesses from across Africa about how climate change is affecting their lives. For more information go to www.emg.org.za.
Nicole Johnston is regional media coordinator for Oxfam GB