Impact Areas: Deforestation-An Example of the Intersection of Health & Environment in Malawi

Ariel view of major deforestation in Malawi.
Photo credit: Katie Sacca

Most WC teachers consider the HIV/AIDS and environmental curriculums to be distinctly separate. In fact, when we look at each issue on a deeper level, we see how intrinsically linked they are. We see how they influence each other. There are many other ways in which health and environment impact each other throughout the world. The goal of this blog post is to show just one of the many ways that HIV/AIDS and environmental issues are intertwined in Malawi.


The environmental issues most commonly discussed in Malawi today are deforestation and food security. These are by no means the only environmental problems in Malawi, nor are they necessarily the most pressing. On a broad level, one can easily see how the basic connection between deforestation and food security impacts Malawians. Most Malawians live in rural areas (State Department's 2010 estimate: 90%) and depend on locally-grown and harvested food, often from their own yards (ever wonder why there are so many goats and chickens around?). Deforestation causes erosion and soil degradation, which threaten the land on which subsistence or cash crops are grown. When these crops fail to grow, farmers struggle to make an income and feed their families. 

Deforestation also causes problems related to water quality, often to water sources miles away. Pesticides and waste runoff contaminate natural water sources. This happens because of soil compaction; roots on trees create air pockets which are essential for drainage of surface water; this water is in turn essential for maintaining the natural underground water table. In addition to decreasing water quality, deforestation and subsequent soil erosion/degradation leads to smaller crop yields, the overuse of toxic fertilizers (to make up for poor yield due to erosion), and ultimately, poorer nutrition when families are forced to make do with smaller yields, decreased (or negligent) net profit from cash crops, and less quality/variety in subsistence crops.

A Malawian local carries firewood on the back of his bike.
Photo credit: Katie Sacca

Another major effect of deforestation relates to poverty and infrastructure. Less than 5% of Malawians have access to electricity, leaving around 14 million people dependent on kerosene and open fires for light, heat and cooking fuel. Anyone who has been on a WC homestay in Malawi can attest to the fact that standing in the cooking hut for long periods of time is straight up impossible; dense smoke from cooking fires is a health hazard in and of itself. The massive population increase in recent years is responsible for small-scale deforestation* for this very reason: fuel wood for cooking fires.

So we have now established three threats to health that are directly correlated with deforestation: nutrition and poor water quality due to runoff and soil degradation, and hazards due to cooking fire exposure. The connection between HIV/AIDS and deforestation is a little less obvious so we’ll break it down as we go along.

Deforestation is as much a local problem as a national problem in Malawi. On a very local scale, the more people in an area (lets say a small village), the more the problem will grow. Trees naturally replenish themselves at a very slow rate, so it’s nearly impossible to replace them at the rate they’re being harvested on a small-scale basis. As deforestation intensifies in a localized area, the amount of time it takes to gather the necessary amount of wood to fuel a cooking fire for an average Malawian family increases significantly. Here we get at one of our tenets of HIV/AIDS education: prevention. 

How can deforestation possibly have an effect on HIV/AIDS prevention? Here are a few examples (there are surely more):

• Older children skip school or drop out and spend their day searching for firewood, working to make money to buy firewood, or caring for their siblings while their parents search for firewood (HIV/AIDS effect: these children miss out on critical HIV/AIDS prevention programming in school, one of the only places where children are taught objectively and correctly about HIV/AIDS).
• Single mothers who can’t afford to spend their day searching for fuel may sell their bodies in order to earn money to purchase firewood (HIV/AIDS effect: commercial sex is a risk factor for HIV).
• A pregnant HIV+ mother has to decide between spending her day collecting or buying firewood for her family’s meals and traveling to the health clinic for HIV treatment (HIV/AIDS effect: although ARV treatment for pregnant HIV+ women is free in Malawi, if women can’t make it to the clinic, their newborn is at risk for HIV as well through vertical Mother to Child Transmission).

However seemingly nuanced, many more connections between health and environment in Malawi remain. It's interesting to note that the points made about HIV/AIDS prevention eroding because of deforestation above also apply to food security and nutrition in Malawi. When food security is threatened on a family level, all three of the above examples of HIV/AIDS prevention are also vulnerable. Food security and nutrition are equally as threatening to the general population of Malawi as deforestation is.

So, what next? 

Trees and harvest in Malawi.
Photo credit: Katie Sacca

Despite the grim news of deforestation, Malawi has made significant strides in countering deforestation. One of the most popular ways to respond to widespread deforestation is implementing and promoting family planning, which as many of you know is a prominent section of World Camp’s environmental curriculum (the cup game!).  This week, Malawi will receive a $350 million (K53 billion) grant from the US-based Millennium Challenge Corporation to overhaul its energy network (among other projects). Hopefully, this will lead to improvements in energy infrastructure for Malawi’s rural populations who depend on firewood for survival, not merely industry (mining, industry factory production power shortages have dominated the energy conversation in Malawi in recent months). Stay tuned for more discussion on energy and innovation in Malawi!  



*The nature of deforestation in Malawi is very different from the clear-cutting we’re all used to hearing about in Brazil or the Pacific Northwest. It is small-scale in nature in that deforestation is caused by many individuals hacking down individual trees and eventually patches of vegetation for personal use or small-scale income generating activities (selling firewood), rather than the large scale removal of entire forests (which happens mainly in the south of Malawi on tea and tobacco plantations). 

Sources:

• State.gov Malawi Profile
• Personal correspondence; Kara Greenblatt, independent consultant on Food security and nutrition
• Wines, Michael. "Malawi Is Burning, and Deforestation Erodes Economy." New York Times 1 Nov. 2005.
• Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/international/africa/01malawi.html
• Nyasa Times Staff. “US completes $350 electricity Grant for Malawi.” Nyasa Times 2 April 2011. Available at: http://www.nyasatimes.com/national/us-completes-350m-electricity-grant-for-malawi.html

Submitted by: Katie Sacca, WC Coordinator


**If you'd like to submit a post concerning one of 3 Impact Areas-HIV/AIDS, Environmental Issues or Gender Equality-, please email info@worldcampforkids.org or katy@worldcampforkids. Excerpts from current undergrad and grad research papers, discussions from classes, thoughts on articles, etc. are encouraged!**