FOREST COLLAPSE—In 2023 alone, Malawi lost almost 23,000 hectares of tree cover
By Charles Mpaka:
In Malawi, being a forest guard isn’t a glamourous, sought-after job.
And forest guards are often ignored, enjoying little mention in forestry discourse – until recently amid the worsening crashing down of the country’s forests, and how that is making the forestry security work become increasingly perilous.
In 2024 alone, a total of eight forest rangers were killed in separate incidents while in the line of duty, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources.
Malawi has not recorded such a high number of forest guard killings before, says the ministry, admitting that the hostility on its frontline staff by illegal charcoal producers and loggers is becoming alarming.
“People who are destroying our forests are on the loose. They are killing our forestry officials,” says Minister of Natural Resources, Owen Chomanika.
He said this at a meeting his ministry had convened in January 2025 to discuss with other forestry sector players strategies to stem the tide of forest destruction in Malawi.
What prompted the meeting was a brazen operation on the government plantation on Zomba Mountain.
Over several weeks, young men armed with machetes, saws and axes, moving in groups numbering between 50 and 100 invaded the plantation every morning, cutting down pine trees and carrying away the contraband through the streets of the city below in full public spectacle.
With government forest guards overwhelmed, the ministry had to engage the Malawi Defence Force and Malawi Police Service to crack down on the terror.
Malawi’s forests are falling. Data from the Global Forest Watch show that between 2001 and 2023, Malawi lost almost quarter of a million hectares of its 1.5 million hectares of tree cover.
In 2023 alone, the country lost almost 23,000 hectares of tree cover, the highest forest loss Malawi has suffered in a single year since 2001.
This devastation is affecting even protected forests where government deploys forest guards. And as deforestation mounts – driven by worsening poverty, ever-rising demand for charcoal for cooking and farmland expansion – these forest security staff, badly ill-equipped and chronically inadequate in number, have the unenviable task of pushing back the avalanche.
In doing so, they are putting their lives on the line.
SENT ON PERILOUS ASSIGNMENT—Chomanika hands over a certificate to a forest guard at graduation last month
On February 14, 2025, three forest rangers sustained various degrees of injuries after being attacked by people from villages around Kaning’ina f
