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Article IndexApart from making some of the world's best wind musical instruments, the African blackwood is also prized by wood sculptors. The Makonde sculptors of Tanzania make a handsome living from the sale of sculptures to tourists visiting the region.
On a tour of their workshop in Moshi, I learn that most of the wood carvers have gained the skills from their fathers and uncles and are teaching their children as well.
"The ebony, yet oily look of the mpingo makes it attractive as it has a natural polish that sets it apart from the rest," notes carver Aloyse Mrema. "Due to this, it fetches higher prices than wood carvings from other hard woods."
Chuwa has also donated some mpingo tree seedlings to the wood carvers who have planted them around their workshop. So far, the wood carvers have planted more than 3,000 African blackwood tree seedlings, a respectable amount considering they cut down about 1,500 mpingo trees every year.
"I want them to plant 10,000 mpingo trees next year," says a beaming Chuwa.
Community mobilisation
Known as Bwana Mali Hai (Mr. Mali Hai) in the area, Chuwa has marshalled the entire Kibosho community at the foot of the Mt. Kilimanjaro into planting more than one million fast-growing trees in the region.
This, he says, is critical for the survival of the sensitive Mt. Kilimanjaro ecosystem, which is currently paying a heavy price for climate change as scientists and environmentalists say the snow caps on Africa's highest peak will vanish by 2020.
So popular is Chuwa that he was nominated and elected unopposed to represent Kibosho Division in the Moshi Town Council , a political position that he has exploited to advance his environmental conservation drive by introducing new legislation that criminalizes wholesale tree felling and encroachment on forest land. The new by-laws dictate that if someone wants to fell trees on his farm for commercial gain, then he has to replant at least ten more trees and give 10 percent of the earnings to a village account meant for development purposes such as building new schools, health centres and bursaries for poor, bright children from the village.
From its humble beginnings in 1985, Mali Hai has become a movement to be reckoned with in the entire Kilimanjaro Province of northern Tanzania due to its elaborate environmental conservation sensitization program that has spanned the length and breadth of the entire regions and communities living in and around the Mt. Kilimanjaro ecosystem.
Mali Hai are Swahili words that mean "living resources" since the trees that Chuwa helps plant are alive and can be used by the communities to improve their economic well being.
According to Rodney Lema, the patron of Mali Hai in Singachini Village, the tree planting exercises have been so successful as they involve school children, many of whom have gone on to become environmental ambassadors in their respective villages.
Adds Fadhili Moshi, a Mali Hai patron in Mweka Village: "Through the youth movement in the schools, we have been able to sensitise local villagers during school meetings and mobilized them into planting trees in their farms, along footpaths and on the Mweka Climbing Route at the base of the Mt. Kilimanjaro."
The massive tree planting exercise in the Mt. Kilimanjaro region was also a rallying call for Chuwa and residents to mitigate the negative effects of logging in the region.
Says Chuwa: "When I was growing up, the forest cover in the region was so dense that one could not see the peak of the Kilimanjaro. However, due to logging in the Kilimanjaro Forest and charcoal burning, the forest cover was almost gone in less than 15 years and it was possible to get a good clear look at the Kilimanjaro peak from outside my home."
The venture, notes Chuwa, "brings about a sense of collective ownership and responsibility that is beneficial to the communities so that they can help protect the natural resources from outside interference or destruction since they derive direct benefits from the same."
In recognition of his efforts to conserve the African blackwood and the entire Mt. Kilimanjaro ecosystem, Chuwa has received numerous awards, including the Associate Laureate Award from the Rolex Award for Enterprise Committee and the J. Sterling Morton Award from the National Arbor Day Foundation in the United States.
This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by Inter Press Service (IPS) and the International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ), for the Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development (www.complusalliance.org).
