Organisation Introduces New Way Of Making Charcoal
By Dalitso Samson……
The Youth for Life Change and Development Network (YOLICDEN) has introduced new form of charcoal making as a way of preventing from climate change and deforestation.
Speaking during an interview the Director for the organization which is based in Lilongwe , Kondwani Chipeta described how they make this charcoal and it’s advantages.
” As an organization we saw that people uses trees for charcoal burning which leads to deforestation and climate change. But this is not the best way we can make charcoal, we have brought in this new system of making charcoal where we burn residues from Sugar cane then we powder them and mix with madeya flour then we mood in water pipe off we release in the sun for drying ” said Chipeta.
He continued that this is the cheapest way of making charcoal and a way to prevent from deforestation because it does not require trees.
But commenting on this the Chair person for Natural resources and Climate Change Hon . Welani Chilenga welcomed this by saying that it is a very good initiative and it is welcomed
“This is a very good initiative and I have been visiting them with other officials from the government to see what they are doing,and this shows that people from Malawi will benefit a lot from this in a way that we can conserve our trees and the environment because there is a higher demand of using charcoal ” said Chilenga
He continued that if the system can be brought to the people it will be a every benefiting program. And this can be done if people have been taught the advantage of making charcoal from the residuce not from trees.
Julias Ng’oma the National Director for Civil Society Network on Climate Change CISONECC agreed that indeed people are cutting down trees to generate energies in their homes which is resulting into climate change as such it is good for the government to bring new source of energy for cooking rather than using Charcoal to conserve the environment.
” Many trees are used to make charcoal which leads to bare land. We still want trees standing, we still want environment being protected, we still want trees providing ecosystem services for better life, therefore we encourage them to do more because it is a welcome project. As such it is very important people to start using Hydroelectric power because it is cheaper than charcoal” said Ng’oma.
Ng’oma added that there is a need for the government to ensure that they put an enabling environment that should help to promote all the alternative energy sources that are clean and renewable so that trees and Forest can be served from degradation.
Malawi is facing drought and climate change, floods and soil degradation due to over cutting down of trees carelessly for firewood and charcoal.
