Planting for the camera?

• Green hopes, dry roots

Every year, as Malawi ushers in its National Forestry Season, the country bursts into action. The season, anchored by presidential launches, draws various groups, including Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), community groups, and corporate sponsors, who gather for tree-planting ceremonies during a four-month period from December to April with a sense of duty.

Millions of trees are ceremoniously planted across the country on public, private, and customary lands with promises of growing them in a tradition that symbolizes a national commitment to fighting deforestation, restoring degraded landscapes, and tackling climate change.

Cameras click as tree seedlings are gently placed in freshly dug holes. News stories and pictures flood newspapers’ pages, radio and television stations, and social media, painting a portrait of a country united for the environment.

But beneath the well-publicized campaigns and promising numbers lies a troubling reality: the trees are dying. This reality is increasingly raising concerns. Is Malawi slipping into the culture of “planting for the camera,” where the ritual of planting trees is more celebrated than the actual survival of those trees?

“When you talk about tree planting, it is an activity that should not just end at planting, there are other activities that have to follow. So, after planting, we need tending operations; otherwise, if we plant trees and then we do not manage them afterwards, it becomes difficult because the survival rate becomes compromised,” Clifford Mkanthama, a Forestry Expert and Carbon Economist, says.

A numbers game without follow-through

According to statistics sourced from the Department of Forestry, in the last decade, Malawi has planted an estimated 413.4 million trees, reaching 99.21 percent of its 425 million cumulative target and covering over 165,000 hectares.

At face value, this is an impressive achievement. However, the survival rate of these trees tells a sobering story. On average, just 66.21 percent of these trees survive, with the highest survival rate recorded in the last decade standing at 70.06 percent. That was during the 2021/22 forestry season.

And the figures keep declining. For example, during the 2023/24 season, which is the most recent, having planted 40 million trees, which exceeded the 33 million target, and achieving a 124 percent success rate, only 64.96 percent of those trees survived.

While factors beyond human control, such as climate change, droughts, and floods, as well as factors that can be controlled, including animal grazing and fires, contribute to these staggeringly low survival figures, experts and environmentalists say the problem is simple. Malawi has perfected the art of planting trees but failed to master the art of growing them.

“The biggest problem that I have seen over time is that tree planting exercises in the country have not been followed up properly with the maintenance of those trees. There are supposed to be weeding activities and other activities that are going to sustain the growth of those trees. I think those have not been well done. We need to plan how to sustain the growth of these trees, and that way we can have plantations that would be donning all the landscapes in the country,” Mkanthama says.

Environmental activist Matthews Malata agrees. He says people are doing things the wrong way, from planting to the management of the trees.

“When it comes to planting, people are no longer following the standards. They just go one day, dig a hole, and then plant a tree like maize or soy beans. So, that is one of the biggest things killing our trees, and we do not have the extension services readily available for the people. So, that is really problematic,” Malata says.

“And after planting those trees, people do not go back to look after the trees just as they do when they have planted maize, where they go to do weeding, fertilizer application and things like that. So, going to plant trees and forgetting to go back and care for those trees is affecting the survival of our trees,” he says.

Forgotten trees and absent owners

According to Mike Likoswe, a Forestry Researcher, the survival rate crisis is rooted in two core problems: poor planning and ambiguous ownership. Once seedlings go into the ground, responsibility often shifts vaguely to communities, without any structured oversight or ownership.

In many communities, the responsibility to care for the trees is left to locals without clear support or incentives. Government departments and NGOs often step away after the planting day, leaving behind no maintenance plans or monitoring frameworks.

“The question, who owns the trees and who is going to use the trees when they reach the utilizable stage needs to be answered. In most cases, people think that communities own those trees. But that has to be agreed before tree planting,” he says.

“Secondly, who is going to manage the trees after planting is another question that is supposed to be answered. So, when communities plant trees with NGOs and Government departments, there should be an indication who will be responsible for taking care of the trees and who will be owning them in terms of utilization. These are the two key issues to consider, minus that, do not expect survival rate to be high,” Likoswe says.

A tradition turned routine

The tree planting campaign, once envisioned as a cornerstone of Malawi’s fight against deforestation and climate change, risks becoming a hollow ritual if the current trend continues. The enthusiasm that fuels the tree planting ceremonies often fades shortly after the cameras stop rolling, leaving the trees’ survival in jeopardy.

Activists say the initiative has become a seasonal routine; a symbolic act repeated annually, often more about publicity than genuine environmental stewardship.

“Planting trees is not just about numbers and pictures, so that people look at us as responsible citizens. People look at us as responsible citizens with genuine intentions based on what we do after those photos,” Malata, an Environmental activist, says.

Malata says this is why there is a need for proper coordination from the department of forestry to be able to track who is planting what sort of trees and where, because if the department knows, it will be able to trace and support with appropriate monitoring mechanisms, so the initiative is not just a routine.

“For the corporate world, if they decide to start tree planting in whatever area, they also need to put in place budgets for monitoring. That plea goes to everyone, we must create some time to go back and see how those trees are faring until we have been able to save them,” Malata says.

He adds, “At the moment, if we claim to be planting 40 million trees for MK100 million and lose 20 million trees out of that 40 million, that is losing MK50 million, then there is nothing we are doing as a country. We are wasting our resources, time, and there is no way we can continue to do the same things. We need to go back to the drawing board and decide to change the way we are doing things. Unfortunately, that urgency is not there, everyone seems to be comfortable, for whatever reasons nobody understands.”

The Department of Forestry is aware of these challenges. Its spokesperson, Tangu Tumeo, says the department is engaging various stakeholders involved in tree planting, including traditional leaders and communities, to improve the survival rate.

“Through the same engagements, we are looking at making sure that we plant at the right time and we are able to secure the planted trees from fire and animals, and where possible when the tree are near households, farmers are encouraged to water as they would water any other crop near their houses,” Tumeo says.

Reimagining the tree planting exercise

Commentators say it is time Malawi rethinks how it approaches tree planting. Rather than treating it as a one-day event, they say tree planting must be backed by structured, long-term care plans.

They say every planting effort, whether led by government, NGOs or corporate sponsors should include a clear tree management plan. This, they recommend, would outline who is responsible for maintaining the trees, how maintenance will be done, and for how long.

They emphasize that forestry work should not be limited to the planting season. Permanent forestry care teams at district level should be tasked with maintaining the trees, offering guidance to communities, and responding to threats like wildfires and animal grazing.

“It is not necessarily fair to be closing the season because we still need to manage the trees in October and November where we have very high temperatures and the fire hazards are quite rampant. We need to always pay attention to those things because if we say we are closing our National Forestry Season in April, yet we have other months, which the trees will equally need our attention, then we are not doing justice,” Mkanthama says.

He adds; “We cannot ignore that kind of season because these are the times that we need to make sure that our trees are out of danger from wildfires. So, yes, we actually need the whole year, 365 days where we can actually be talking about managing of our trees and forest resources.”

The Department of Forestry echoes this sentiment, highlighting its ‘Adopt a Forest’ initiative, which encourages stakeholders to commit to multi-year forest management partnerships.

Tumeo says; “The department already has in place the ‘Adopt a Forest’ initiative. It was developed for the same purpose to have a short-term, medium-term, and long-term memorandum of understanding whereby if for example, corporate sponsors are planting trees at a school, they should be able to work with that school throughout that year to do all forest management activities to make sure that those trees survive.”

“Every year, they can do the same, increase the area or just manage the planted trees for three to five years. So, it is something that we are already working on to avoid people randomly planting trees everywhere that are not managed,” she adds.

A bigger picture

While the country is struggling with survival rate, one thing to note is that forests continue shrinking at a fast pace and if not careful, the country will one day wake up and find that all forests are gone.

Despite planting thousands of hectares each year, Malawi continues to lose over 11,000 hectares of forest cover annually, primarily due to charcoal production, agriculture, and infrastructure development. With survival rates taken into account, the actual area replenished is often less than the forest lost.

Both the Department of Forestry and commentators agree that Malawi must shift from celebrating tree planting to prioritizing tree survival, other afforestation efforts including natural regeneration, and protecting the existing forests. This means investing in forest management, strengthening local monitoring systems, and holding stakeholders accountable.

“We want to plant 100 percent and ensure that 100 percent of the trees that have been planted survive. Nevertheless, we are still making progress and we will try as much as possible to increase the survival rate and not go below what we have at the moment through the initiatives that we have set up,” Tangu Tumeo, the Forestry Department spokesperson, says.

She adds, “We have a strategic plan, we have targets for each year, but we continue to call for more investments in forest management. We not only focus on increasing reforestation but we focus on managing, conserving what we already have to make sure that we do not continue losing and if we are going to be restoring, then we are going to be restoring at a smaller pace rather than continue to lose, which is like we are putting water in a bucket full of holes.”

At the same time, Malata, the environmentalist, says enforcement of environmental laws must be strengthened to balance the afforestation efforts and forest cover loss.

He says, “We are not enforcing our Forestry Act the way we should have been enforcing. We see illegal charcoal on our roads, and one underlying issue for that is corruption, and we need to root that out in the forestry sector. The day we decide to be serious and make serious decisions about how we should term corruption and deforestation in this country, obviously, we are going to get back on track because there is no control in terms of what we are extracting from our existing forests.”

On his part, Mkanthama says afforestation efforts need to go hand-in-hand with national efforts to promote affordable alternative energy sources so that Malawians are not forced to depend on forests for fuel.

“This goes beyond the Department of Forestry. Charcoal is on the market because the market is available. We need a holistic approach where all the departments, institutions, and organizations involved in making sure that the landscapes are healthy come together and see how best to alleviate energy problems for Malawi,” Mkanthama says.

From declarations to deeds

Going forward, environmental advocates believe the future of Malawi’s tree planting and all afforestation efforts depends on availability of resources for care activities and grassroots revolution.

“Whether we are planting trees or doing natural regeneration, we need to make sure that we have resources that are going to help us take care of the trees,” Mkanthama says.

On his part, Malata says Malawi need a system, whereby the Department of Forestry should strengthen structures at Traditional Authority level, something he believes will make it easy to track afforestation efforts, including tree planting.

“This is why, all the chiefs gathered in Lilongwe, they signed an agreement with the Malawi Government to say we will support government in afforestation plans. But what has happened after signing those documents, we missed it, a very good idea, well concept developed but we have not actualized that. Maybe, we also did it for pictures. The Department of Forestry should go back to those ideas,” Malata says.

Malata also calls for Members of Parliament and Cabinet Ministers to lead by example.

He says; “It is disappointing that few leaders that is ministers and MPs follow up with tree planting in their locations after the president launches the initiative. These are the champions that must be in the forefront, planting these trees but also putting in place mechanism for monitoring until those trees survive.”

“So, let us go on the grassroots. That is the only way we can win. But if we continue to do it at higher level for pictures, or for whatever reasons, it is not going to help us as a country,” Malata says.

The bottom line

As a member of the United Nations Malawi is obliged to manage her forests sustainably, combat desertification, halt land degradation and halt biodiversity loss by the year 2030. This is according to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals-SDGs number 15.

Additionally, Malawi is part and parcel of the Bonn Challenge Initiative whereby it is committed to restore about 4.5 million hectares of forests and landscapes by 2030, a target the country might fail to achieve looking at the numbers of trees it has been planting and staggering survival rates, which calls for acceleration of action in order to stick to the commitment.

Nevertheless, increasing the number of trees planted, is not enough without proper care and follow-ups. Malawi’s environmental future depends not only on how many trees it plants, but how many survive. That requires long-term investments, local ownership, accountability, and cross-sector collaborations. It means moving away from planting for publicity to planting for the future.

Otherwise, Malawi risks wasting valuable resources and opportunities, and failing to meet international obligations.

Until then, the forests may continue to shrink, one forgotten seedling at a time.

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