MCHF Overview of work on sustainable forest management

Modern Cooking for Healthy Forests (MCHF) promotes sustainable forest management and energy options to maintain forest cover and to reduce land-based emissions in Malawi. MCHF is a five-year activity funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). Tetra Tech implements MCHF in partnership with five subcontractors: Winrock International (WI), the Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy (CEPA), the Lilongwe Wildlife Trust (LWT), World Resources Institute (WRI), and mHub.

MCHF’s objectives include:

1. Promoting adoption of alternative energy sources and efficient cooking technologies to reduce unsustainable wood fuel cooking demand, and most importantly urban demand for illegal and unsustainable charcoal;

2. Improving local delivery of forestry services, and promoting forest-friendly enterprises, including sustainable charcoal and other biomass energies;

3. Strengthening regulation and enforcement to support sustainable wood fuel production and use;

4. Increasing the Government of Malawi’s (GoM) implementation capacity of low emissions development in REDD+, Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR), and/or other land use; and

5. Leveraging interventions with partners, including USAID, FCDO, other development partners, Government of Malawi and the private sector.

MCHF’s Objective 2 aims to improve local delivery of forestry services, and to promote forest-friendly enterprises, including sustainable charcoal and other biomass energies. The focus of Objective 2 is to increase wood fuel supply by improving forest governance and forest-friendly livelihoods. MCHF works to formalise the role of local institutions such as District Councils, traditional leaders, and Village Natural Resource Management Committees (VNRMCs) in legally recognized forest co-management arrangements.

Objective 2 work is anchored in two landscapes, containing forest reserves, forest plantations, and adjacent forested areas such as private plantations, customary lands, gazetted and non-gazetted Village Forest Areas (VFAs), private lands, and woodlots. These select landscapes present the greatest current and future potential to safeguard and increase wood fuel production as well as to supply urban areas.