How a Malawian village is holding back floods
Under the thick canopy of a man-made forest in Chikwawa, a district in southern Malawi, Luis Kudzala points towards the dry bed of the Mikalango River. During the rainy season, he says, that same river threatens to suddenly swell and flood nearby homes.
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After a series of damaging floods, the community decided it could no longer idly wait for the next disasters, which are likely to hit even harder due to climate change. “We sat down to find the root cause of the damage and what could be done to minimise it,” Kudzala says. “We realised one of the reasons was the lack of trees.” So in 2013, villagers began planting trees close to the riverbanks. What started as a local effort has since grown into a forest of neem, Albizia lebbeck and other tree species.
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Earlier this year, when heavy rains returned to the region, the outcome was different, according to Kudzala. The trees and the dyke stopped floodwater from reaching nearby households. “Without it, we would have been speaking about how many houses had been destroyed,” he says. “But because of the dyke, there is a bit of relief, considering we haven’t covered the whole riverbank yet.”
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