Deforestation Rips Through Malawi - ENS

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MANGOCHI, Malawi, November 16, 2004 (ENS) - "Deforestation for charcoal burning, slash and burn cultivation, and tobacco curing is threatening human survival and the entire ecosystem of this African rift country. Fresh water has turned saline along the shore of Lake Malawi, and wildlife habitat is disappearing as a result of widespread logging.

The Forest Act prohibits clearing of indigenous forests, but a tour of the lands along Lake Malawi shows that areas that were covered with woodlands just a few years ago, are now bare. The brachystegia trees, their pale golden heartwood striped with dark brown, are gone.

Conservationists have expressed alarm at the rate of land clearing by those intending to open new farms. David Bradfield, project manager for the German funded Frankfurt Zoological Society, runs a project in Liwonde National Park. Holding a Global Positioning System device that he uses to map the deforestated areas, he warns that deforestation is taking its toll on the environment in the areas surrounding Liwonde National Park and the forest areas in the Namwera area all the way to the Mozambique border. “When I came here, two years ago there were trees in these mountains," he said, pointing to the Mlindi Hills close to the newly opened Mangochi-Naminga road. "This time around there no trees left."

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Consulting hydrogeologist Jim Anscombe, who has been working in the area, says the forest acts like blanket over the land, and the trees work like a water pump. “Driven by energy from the sun, the trees pump water from the water table, through the roots, trunk and leaves, up into the atmosphere through the process of transpiration," he said. "Collectively the forest pumps millions of liters of water daily to the atmosphere." "In subtropical climates such as Malawi," said Anscombe, "transpired water condenses in the stratosphere, creating thunderheads, which push up the breeze, redistributing the water as summer rain. Under these conditions, crops are reliably grown on the plains between the forested uplands. Families are fed, and drought and famine are rare.”

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Rainfall from summer thunderheads decreases as the trees are felled. Rainfall distribution deteriorates and becomes dependent on more erratic regional weather patterns such as those pushed by pressure changes from distant oceans. Crop yields suffer from reduced rainfall and degraded soils, increasingthe incidence of crop failure and famine. Ascombe has been conducting gound water surveys on where boreholes should be sunk for wells under a German funded GITEC project. He says deforestation is having a devastating effect on the water table. On the plains between deforested areas the water table has become shallower because there are no trees left to pump the water to the atmosphere, he explains. Direct sunlight on the soil surface increases the amount of water loss to the atmosphere from the now shallow water table. This leads to salt buildup in the soil layers and the progressive reduction in soil fertility."

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