Fire has wiped out over 200 hectares of both young and mature trees in Mzimba’s Viphya Plantation, popularly known as Chikangawa, which is under Raiply Malawi concession.
Thousands other hectares are said to be affected too.
Raiply Malawi Public Relations Officer Dalitso Chimwala said in an interview Wednesday that an assessment of the damage continues and that the number of hectares that have been destroyed may rise following the fast progress of the fire.
Chimwala said the company suspects that poachers are behind the arson, which has wiped out trees planted between 2021 and 2023.
He said 70 percent of Champhoyo Station, which has about 6,650 hectares of trees, is feared to have been affected by the fire which is reportedly spreading fast because of wind and hot weather.
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“It is a very huge loss to the company, which depends on trees for its survival. It is not only us as a company that are losing but communities surrounding us too because some of the affected areas are sources of water for many rivers, where people conduct irrigation farming,” Chimwala said.
Wednesday, Raiply Malawi officials and other stakeholders were locked in a meeting to brainstorm on ways of stopping the damage apart from usual activities Raiply undertakes to protect trees under its concession from bushfires.
Among other things, the company has towers from where they monitor fires and a team of firefighters who patrol the entire concession.
In his recent visit to the company, Minister of Natural Resources and Climate Change Michael Usi advised traditional leaders and people surrounding Viphya Plantations to be at the forefront in taking care of the manmade forest “because it is a government asset”.
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Commenting on the latest fire, Inkosi Kampingo Sibande from the area expressed disappointment over the intense fire.
The chief said, currently, they have joined the company to find out what exactly has caused the fire.
“We have very little information about the fires at the forest but I can confirm that I have heard that they have caused huge damage. We will follow up on the matter and see how we can assist,” Sibande said.
Raiply Malawi has a concession of 20,000 hectares from the 53,000 of the entire Viphya Plantations.
This is not the first time for the company to be a victim of fires, including those allegedly sparked by mice hunters, poachers, sacked workers.
Illegal timber sawyers are also sometimes fingered for the destruction of the forest apparently because they use fires to illuminate their pathways into the forest at night.
In November 2019, Raiply Malawi indicated that it had lost 1,000 hectares of young trees started by villages surrounding the forest.
That time, a total of 24 fires broke out in different parts of the company’s concession area.
