At Ripple Africa, we empower communities in Malawi to protect their environment and livelihoods through forest conservation and tree planting, sustainable fishing, and fuel-efficient cookstoves. Our integrated approach ensures lasting impact across multiple areas.
By taking climate action, you can support holistic, meaningful solutions to the climate crisis while helping families and communities thrive.
As the proverb goes, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Forests provide a vital habitat for animals and support people by purifying the air we breathe and regulating local temperatures. They also act as carbon sinks.
By taking climate action, you can support 1,800 Forest Conservation Committee members to protect 340 sq.km of forest.
Our tree planting project helps fight deforestation too as we support farmers to plant quick-growing trees that provide a sustainable source of firewood and timber for local people. So far we have planted over 24 million trees.
We have helped construct over 125,000 fuel-efficient cookstoves and support householders to maintain and use them.
These fuel-efficient cookstoves not only reduce emissions but contribute to protecting forests. Have you considered offsetting your carbon footprint?
Each cookstove saves two bundles of wood per week, that is an incredible 250,000 bundles of firewood being saved, reducing household wood use by 67%. Other benefits include less risk of burns and smoke inhalation.
We have established 474 Beach Village Committees (BVCs) who are protecting 133 fish breeding grounds along 736km of shoreline.
BVCs are empowered to manage the fishing in their area by making community members aware of the local bylaws and confiscating illegal nets and fining offenders.
Fish breeding areas are protected to allow the fish to breed and grow, and there is a closed season for fishing too. Fishermen are using larger meshed gill nets and catching bigger fish and increasing their income.
Malawi is listed as one of the five countries most affected by climate change in the 2021 Global Climate Risk Index, yet produces less than 0.01% of the world’s emissions. The climate crisis is already bringing more intense rainfall, and more frequent floods and drought to the country, with temperatures predicted to rise by up to 5° Celsius before the end of the century. Per capita Malawi emits only a fiftieth of the green-house gases of people in the UK.
Malawi has been affected by storms and cyclones over the past few years with the country declaring a state of natural disaster on numerous occasions because of the damage caused. People have died, thousands have lost their homes and livelihoods with many people having to live in makeshift emergency camps.
As more than 80 percent of Malawi’s population live in rural areas, the vast majority depend on agriculture for their livelihood. The impacts of climate change threaten the production of staple foods that families rely on and are putting lives at risk. Climate change also affects other sectors such as fisheries and forestry – all of which provide food and income to rural communities throughout Malawi. Erratic rainfall poses a challenge to crop production, as do higher temperatures and droughts as well as dry spells in the rainy season, all of which are becoming more and more common.
Climate predictions are that there will be increased frequency of heavy rainfall and droughts and by 2050, temperatures will increase by 1–3 degrees. There will be a later onset / earlier cessation of the rainy season and an increase in the average monthly rainfall from Dec – Jan and a decrease from Feb – April.
These factors will:
Cyclone Idai, which hit Malawi in 2019, is one example of how climate change is affecting Malawians. The cyclone caused an estimated £220 million in damages and directly impacted over 975,000 people, killing 60, injuring 672, and leaving more than 86,000 without homes. Since then there has been Storm Ana, and Cyclone Freddy, plus other flash floods and droughts affecting the country.
What is happening in Malawi is just one example of the many injustices poor people across the globe face as a result of climate change.
