EGENCO goes further upstream of Shire River in its annual tree planting exercise to preserve vulnerable river catchment areas

* To plant 7,000 trees sorrounding areas of Ulongwe in Balaka and along Nkhonde River banks which flows into the Shire and currently feeds its silt and debris after degradation of trees along its catchment areas 

* ‘What EGENCO is doing is agreeing to the call for the nation to replace trees and to preserve water bodies’—Minister of Natural Resources, Energy & Mining, Jean Mathanga

By Duncan Mlanjira

The Energy Generation Company (EGENCO) rolled out its annual tree planting season along vulnerable catchment areas of Shire River’s tributaries and this time targeting further upstream for Nkhonde River in Ulongwe, Balaka District.

Nkhonde River’s banks are greatly degraded of its trees, thus as it flows into the Shire River, it is currently feeding its silt and debris which in turn flows along with the main water supply for EGENCO’s hydro power generation stations at Nkula, Tedzani and Kapichira.

EGENCO initiated the annual tree planting exercise in aligning with the country’s Forestry Season to preserve vulnerable catchment areas, which were mostly closer to the hydro power stations in Mwanza and Neno.

For the communities surrounding Nkhonde River, EGENCO has supplied over 7,000 tree seedlings along with 1,000 fruit trees, which have been given to community members as a token of appreciation for volunteering to prepare the targeted spaces to plant the trees.

EGENCO’s initiative to align itself with the country’s Forestry Season, that falls between December 15 to April, was applauded for by Minister Natural Resources, Energy & Mining, Jean Mathanga, who graced the exercise at Nkhonde and planted one of the 250 seedlings that were part of the launch of the planting season.

She was joined by various EGENCO business partners and the Minister said “what EGENCO is doing is agreeing to the call for the nation to replace trees and to preserve water bodies” against contributing towards challenges faced in energy generation through serious siltation from Shire River’s tributaries.

Addressing a huge crowd that attended the launch at Nkhonde Catholic Primary School along the Arthur Peter Mutharika Highway to Mangochi, Minister attested to that what happens downstream of the Shire is because of the tree degradation of  its upstream river tributaries including Nkhonde.

The trees that have been supplied are the mahoganies, which were identified as the right species to maintain strong and resilient protection against siltation and debris following high rainfall.

She impressed the traditional leaders to inculcate a culture of voluntary tree replacement on their community subjects, through planting trees on the river banks and fruit trees around their households compounds to further strengthen their farming fields’ fertile soil against being swept away by rainwater into the rivers.

She also highlighted that EGENCO faces a lot of challenges to deal with siltation at its power stations in Mwanza and Neno, whose repair works lead to load shedding and to the drain of financial resources that could have been used towards investing in other energy sources.

“Our actions far away from EGENCO’s power plants play a huge role in the challenges we face at the generation plants, which in turn come back to affect us all in terms of power supply,” she said.

“So, we all have a part to play to mitigate the effects of wanton cutting down of trees without replacing them through observing the national Forestry Season, which was launched this year by the Vice-President, the Right Hon. Jane Ansah.”

The Minister further enlightened the community members that the degradation of the environment is leading to climate change, which is greatly affecting farming through unpredictability of rainfall seasons  that lead to poor harvests as well as recent flood disasters that have arisen due to cyclones Ana, Gombe and Freddy.

The Minister was given the honour to present some essential tools that EGENCO provided to the community members in order to manage the trees planted to ensure a maximum survival rate — that included watering cans, wheelbarrows, shovels, hoes and slashers.

The volunteers from three communities were also trained through the Department of Forestry on how to manage the tree seedlings and EGENCO Chief Executive Officer, William Liabunya explained that this is part of the company’s annual tree planting programme to ensure maximum survival rate.

He explained that over the years they have been supplying the communities with the essential tree seedling tools and how to manage seedling nurseries as well as monitoring progress where worn out tools are replaced.

“We have noted that over 70% to 80% of trees we have planted in Mwanza and Neno have favourably survived, which gives us the energy to continue with this exercise because the impact of bare hills and river banks along the Shire River are negatively affecting operations at our power generation stations.

“So the community engagement is very important for us to work together in this fight against environmental degradation and we at EGENCO thank community leaders for their support to make this initiative a success,” said the CEO.

EGENCO was joined at the launch by the traditional leaders, ward counselor, as well as various business partners that included the Forestry Department, One NICO, NBS Bank, Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (MERA), FDH Bank, Mpatamanga Hydropower Limited, ESCOM, Malawi Police Service, the Malawi Defence Force and several others to plant the initial 250 tree seedlings.