A small country taking big action on the environment: farmers tackling deforestation in Burundi
By Gloria Nimpundu, Country Director for Ripple Effect Burundi
This week at COP29 in Azerbaijan the world takes stock of the practical work that’s been done to address the global climate emergency. Smallholder farmers in Burundi can take credit for the hundreds of kilometres of contour ditches they have dug by hand around their hillsides, to restore their land.
Soil erosion is a major environmental challenge in mountainous Burundi, which lost more than 40% of its tree cover in the 20 years up to 2010.
No power means trees are cut for fuel
This has been driven by the expansion of agriculture into marginal lands (Burundi’s population density is one-and-a-half times that of the UK), and tree-cutting for charcoal and firewood which is needed for heating and cooking, as well as construction.
Remote rural areas have no power infrastructure. Approximately 90% of the population depends on charcoal and firewood for heating and cooking.
On deforested hillsides, increasingly heavy and unpredictable rain due to the climate crisis is washing away valuable topsoil, cutting dramatic and unstable ravines through the landscape and causing devastating landslides that threaten whole communities.
The human cost of deforestation
Caritas and her family are amongst the 2,700 rural families in Mwaro, central Burundi, who worked with Ripple Effect on the two-year Food and Income Security in Mwaro project (for communities affected by climate change) from 2021-2023, which was designed to directly address the challenges of the climate crisis.
Caritas says: “We had to leave our homes during heavy rains for fear of landslides. The ravines were a very big threat to us. Some of our cattle fell into the ravines and died, and me and my child also fell into one and suffered serious injuries.”
Ripple Effect’s locally-based staff supported members of self-help groups in the project to terrace 75 km of contours in the region, protecting 125 hectares of land as s part of the Burundian government’s drive to have all hills (collines) protected by contour ditches and terraces.
Training other people in the community, and extending awareness of the techniques and the importance of this work, led to a further 216 km of contours being dug on surrounding collines, protecting a further 367 hectares of land.
Thursdays for the environment
Fodder grasses and trees planted along the newly dug contours have stabilised valuable topsoils, and also provide essential food for livestock, and income for smallholder farming families.
Community members in the project were compensated the equivalent of approximately £1.50 a day for their labour on the contour work. This small additional income helped them pay for school fees for their children and for farm supplies and home improvements.
This intensive work was designed to support the Burundian government’s national programme Ewe Burundi Urambaye (“Let’s Reforest Burundi”), with every Thursday dedicated to environmental protection to make significant progress in a short period of time.
Tree-planting to create a fruit barn
The project also supported major tree-planting work in this region: 1,206 hectares of land have been reforested with native forest trees, and also fruit trees, to provide important nutrition and income.
Local officials believe that despite the challenges of climate change the Mwaro region has the potential to be the “fruit barn” of Burundi.
Farmers involved with the project planted 154,000 avocadoes trees, 64,000 Japanese plum trees, 50,000 passion fruit seedlings, 6,000 mango trees, 3,000 orange trees and 3,000 lemon trees. And in line with Ripple Effect’s commitment to sustainable agriculture, and national laws that prevent the use of plastics, the nurseries used banana leaves instead of plastic bags to grow the seedlings.
Saving trees with energy-efficient stoves
Other essential environmental protection works in the Ripple Effect project included nearly 3,300 households building energy-saving cooking stoves. As a result, families say they now use significantly less firewood. They also spend less time cooking, which frees up their time for other work, and the amount of smoke from the cooking stove is reduced. All these will have a significant impact on the high rates of respiratory disease in these communities.
The next step will be biodigesters, using compost and animal manure to generate household fuel. Fourteen biodigesters were constructed as part of the project, providing clean energy, but they are currently prohibitively expensive at a cost of around £1,000 each. Nonetheless, those installed in zones across the region will serve as a model for farming families that manage to generate enough income from their other improved agricultural work.
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