Malawi's climate is divided into 2 main seasons: a wet season and a dry season. The dry season runs from June into November, and from cold to hot. The hotter it gets, the drier the land and the higher the risk of fires.

These fires are all man-made, borne from poverty and lack of education. They are not part of the natural life cycle here.

Poverty drives people to light fires in the bush to catch mice and other rodents which constitute a valuable source of protein.

Lack of education means that people don't understand the dangers that the fires constitute for the environment, that the fires will destroy the growth of future trees, will cause the damage to the ecosystems, will destabilise the soil etc.

For the past 4 years TREEZ has been working hard to try and reduce the number of fires on the south western slopes of the Zomba Plateau and on the Plateau itself, and has shown huge success. The number of fires in a dry season has been reduced from 37 to 3; the areas of natural regeneration are steadily growing, the planted trees are doing great and on this side of the Plateau at least, the level of deforestation has decreased.

And the results of this success has meant that the Plateau is showing positive signs of growth where young naturally regenerated trees are now 3 to 4 metres tall, and planted ones are doing nearly as well.

All this is thanks to the football/netball teams (4 combined netball and football teams) who are sponsored in exchange of conservation help, to local community groups who are maintaining the young trees and allowing them to grow unimpeded, to our education team who were in the schools teaching the younger ones environmental education, to the Zomba Tour Guides and to all of them combined who are helping to show their fellow villagers a smarter way of harvesting their firewood.

But with the advent of COVID-19, the world's attention has shifted, and donations have dried up. Much of the money raised by TREEZ was through Zomba Forest Lodge guests, but these numbers have also collapsed.

In short, TREEZ needs help to get through the dry season.

We need to buy tools for the various teams to create firebreaks

Slashers x 60 = 300,

Sickles x 30 180

Hoes x 40 = 260

Fire beaters x 50 = 250

PPE masks x 120 = 50

Patrols = 1,000.

There is more that is needed but we realise that most people's purse's are already stretched.

We want to do all we can to prevent all this hardwork from being destroyed.

Below are some pictures of the devastation that fires cause, but also of our various helpers and areas that are now growing back :)