Blantyre, March 31 (IPS) -In Malawi, becoming a forest guard is not a gorgeous and popular job. And until recently, I rarely enjoyed public relations. Until recently, occupation is becoming more and more dangerous as it collapses in the forests of the country.
Only in 2024, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources, a total of eight forest rangers died in a separate incident in the obligations, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources, which is responsible for 88 forest reserves and 11 farm management.
Malawi admitted that illegal charcoal producers and Roger warn that they had not recorded a large number of forest guards before.
Natural Resources Minister of Owen Chomanika said, “Those who destroy our forests have become loose, killing our forest management.
In January 2025, he was convened, and he said at the meeting to discuss the strategy of other forestry sector athletes to prevent the assistant of Malawi’s forest destruction.
The meeting was a shameless operation on the government farm in Mount Zomba, in the east.
For several weeks, young people moved to groups between 50 and 100, armed with horses, saws and axes, invading farms every morning, cutting pine trees, and completely moving smuggling into the public sight.
As the government forest guards were overwhelmed, the ministry had to crack down on illegal operations to the Malawi Defense Forces and Malawi Police Bureau.
According to the data from Global Forest Watch, between 2001 and 2023, Malawi lost almost 1/4 hectares of 1.5 million hectares of wooden covers. Only in 2023, the country lost almost 23,000 hectares of wooden covers. Malawi suffered in a year since 2001.
This devastation is also falling in the protected forest where the government deploys forest guards. Foresting has worsened poverty and has a impossible task of withdrawing the eye of the eye due to the constant demand for charcoal to cooking and farmland expansion.
They are in danger of their lives by doing this.
On February 14, 2025, three forest Rangers suffered a variety of injuries after being attacked by the villagers around the Kaning’ina Forest in the Mzimba region in northern Malawi. This incident occurred when the guards illegally cut trees in the forest.
Three days later, five forestry officers were injured when the members of the community around the Chikala Forest in Machinga in the east used stones. Their crime was that some men were arrested in a village that illegally discovered charcoal production in the reserve army.
Malawi’s forest guards, who have been hacked on their faces and are kicked out by the brilliant mobs from the stone, are getting more and more to the launch line when they go out to execute the law. The principal of Yusuf Nkungula, the Principal of the Natural Resources Department, partially affects internal challenges.
“The task can be structurally and operating. The structural task can be grouped by the number of guards and the number of criminals that can be used at a certain time.”
He said that lack of appropriate equipment, such as guns, means that security guards cannot suppress the pressure of criminals.
NKUNGULA told the IPS, “In general, security guards are attacked by criminals because they are not fully equipped with equipment that can counterattack, which led to eight forest guards in 2024 alone.
Sometimes, the ministry is to help patrol at the Malawi Police Agency, Malawi Defense Forces, National Park and Wildlife Rangers to help patrol at the foresting hotspot.
“This participation is always very expensive. So they don’t continue to happen, so they are creating a space for criminals to be illegal.”
Currently, 806 guards are deployed in the forests and farms, and are lower than the 4,772 forest guards required by the department.
The department is also struggling to have equipment for even the small number of guards due to inappropriate funds. Since 1998, the department has received half of the budget requirements. According to NKUNGULA, the Treasury was the worst in fiscal year 2024-25, with only 30 % of the department’s budget.
“On average, 40 %of the budget has been accessible every year for the past five years. The tribe has not achieved important goals because it adversely affects the operation of the department at all levels.”
Notable problems caused by such financial shortages include not developing farm forestry properly, increasing forest fires, increasing illegal charcoal production, and deteriorating corruption.
Environmental activist Charles MKOKA draws a depressed picture of Malawi’s forest governance to attack forest security guards and inappropriate funds for some groups to exploit institutional weaknesses and become laws.
“As a result, the future of the forest resources of the state is in great danger.” Mkoka, the managing director of the Environmental Rehabilitation Coordination Union, a regional organization.
MKOKA can be a tool for forest restoration, attracting the lessons of other communities who have become an agent of forest recovery and understanding the deadly influence of forest destruction on people’s lives.
“We have a forestry resource in some areas that are successfully restored and thrive through natural regeneration.
“We must also learn from the fatal effects of the recent cyclone that caused Mayhem as a result of a wide range of ecosystem deterioration,” he says.
The rapid speed of foresting weakens the desire to become a developing country with more than 50 % of Malawi’s 2063 forest cover and less than 0.22 % of the foresting rates.
In the agenda, Malawi develops the development programming to minimize the depletion of natural resources by seeing environmental sustainability as the core of sustainable development.
BluePrint said, “Our fundamental concern is that we can enjoy the loot of the environment today, but we are responsible and constantly owing it with the ethics of treatment.
As both forests and forest guards fall, the Ministry of Natural Resources is rolling the sleeves for fighting, as Malawi’s development goals are dangerous.
We plan to recruit 2,466 forest security guards in fiscal year 2025-26 in anticipation of improved funding. This process will continue to the goal of 6,000, and believes that ministry will be suitable for the effective policy of Malawi’s forest.
The government also focuses on deepening the participation of the community in order to prevent the shortage of forest security employees, and is strengthening its position as a regional steward of forest management.
In addition, forest invaders are armed and armed with forest patrols, so the department is strengthening the military ability of the front line.
“The formula that wins in terms of dealing with criminals is to be military -given to the department as in the park and the wild animals.
NKUNGULA said, “For this effect, 205 forest guards have been training for weapons, which will continue until all executives are trained.
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© Inter Press Service (2025) -Lee all rights. Source: Inter Press Service
