'Growing trees is lucrative business'

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The prepare nurseries and plant trees, which can be harvested after between 15 and 20 years.

Dar es Salaam. Rural people in Mufindi District are making money by growing trees for sale.
Most of such people used to depend on subsistence farming for their livelihoods, but they have now turned to growing trees.
The prepare nurseries and plant trees, which can be harvested after between 15 and 20 years.
Mr Mateleka Chang’a, 64, told BusinessWeek that he was assured of a high income. “When I was young I worked as a casual labourer at a Mufindi tea plantation and later at a Tanga sisal estate. When I married I also started cultivating maize and cabbage apart from working as a casual, yet poverty dogged my family. When I grew trees for sale my life was transformed.”
According to him, he started forest farming in 2003. Later he increased the farm size to 7,676 hectares. “I have been harvesting and replanting trees annually. For example, between December last year and March this year I have planted pine trees on 2,500 hectares. I also own a big stall in Dar es Salaam for selling timber.”
He has engaged himself, his three wives and 21 children in growing trees.
He says he has been spending Sh1.19 million daily to pay 170 casual workers.
Another Mufindi tree grower, Mr Chesco Ng’umbi, 46, says he has overcome poverty. “Mzee Chang’a has been paying big role to educate us on how to become rich.”
However, Mr Chang’a would like government not to allow tree growers to harvest trees while young.
He would also like land use plans and regulations to be fine-tuned to protect the interest of tree growers.
Mr Ng’umbi has been growing trees on 1,900 hectares for 12 years now.
Speaking during a TV programme aired last week,
The deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office (Union and Environment), Mr Luhaga Mpina, recently, in a TV interview blamed industrialised nations for causing climate change, but failing to honour pledges on financing reforestation projects or increasing carbon funding.
“Donor countries under the Green Fund, the United Nations, World Bank and others have been hesitant to honour their promises on REDD funds. Even if they pledge readiness, funds are normally delayed and they are insufficient,” said Mr Mpina.
He cited a case whereby for the past five years a group of donors released Sh17 billion, which is inadequate to finance many projects.
According to him, under a five-year plan the government intends to plant 280 million trees annually.
However, a co-ordinator of the National Carbon Monitoring Centre, Prof Eliakimu Zahabu, says dependency on aid on building a forest economy is bad.
Prof Zahabu calls on the government to mobilise people to engage in tree planting in some parts of the country while in Savannah areas people should be encouraged to protect the natural forests.