Mlambe Health and Social Trust (MhEST) initiated a seedlings follow up exercise from 21 April to 14 May aimed at inspecting orchards of Community-Based Organisation (CBO) in Zomba rural.
The initiative came seven weeks after the charitable organisation partnered 137 CBOs to plant over 61,000 fruit and indigenous seedlings as part of a five-year plan targeting more than 1 million trees.
An orchard protected from domestic animals
During February’s tree planting campaign, each of the 137 CBOs received and were expected to plant a minimum of 307 seedlings.
MhEST Senior Programmes Officer Lucky Nyasulu said: “the purpose of the follow up visits during these past few weeks was to check progress made by these CBOs in taking care of their respective orchards.
“We also wanted to find out what kind of challenges they are facing as they strive to take care of the tree seedlings in the best way possible, so that we can eventually equip the CBO members with the technical know-how.”
Nyasulu (Left) converses with a CBO member
Programme Facilitator for T/A Mwambo CBOs Network Martin Chagoma said: “We wanted to see how CBOs are taking care of the seedlings in line with MhEST and their objective to see fruit and indigenous trees planted in the area to help conserve the environment in the long run.
“We’ve seen that the CBOs are doing a great job. They realise that, besides environmental conservation, some of these trees will bear fruits in the long run and become a source of income for them and their communities.”
A tree seedling at one of the CBO orchards
According to MhEST, all the CBOs will later undergo training on tree nursery establishment, tree seedling for agroforestry, grafting and woodlot management to promote ownership and ensure communities are able to raise their own seedlings.
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