COMACO uses several strategies to protect and manage forests and the watersheds these forests service
- Market incentives to enhance reforestation, reduce bushfires, and promote the sustained-use of forest products
Producing a bag of charcoal from a local forest is a lot of work and earns the producer less than $1 per bag. By offering better-paying prices for commodities that take far less time, such as poultry or honey, and requiring producers not to engage in such destructive practices as charcoal making, COMACO is saving thousands of trees each year. To be registered producer group with COMACO's trading centre, farmers must adopt conservation farming, which is a farming technique that leaves crop residues on the ground unburned and soil nutrients better managed. As a result there are less fires that spread for farm fields into surrounding forests. In 2004, 73% of the registered group members adopted this practice and helped to reduce fires on a potentially large scale in Luangwa Valley. COMACO has assisted producer groups with the construction of over 1000 bee hives and is actively developing honey as a profitable commodity rural communities can benefit from if they manage their forests carefully.
- Improved farming practices and selection of crops, which help reduce the need to clear new farm land
Also in 2004, COMACO introduced soybean inputs to over 2000 farmers, who are now practicing crop rotation with a valuable cash crop that significantly enriches the soil and reduces the need to clear new farmland. Because of COMACO's marketing approach which offers market incentives to adopt better crops in support of conservation objectives, these farmers will receive soybean prices that compete favorably with cotton; thereby, offering farmers a cash alternative and a way to keep their forests safe from unnecessary land clearing. Cotton also requires toxic chemicals applied 5 to 7 times in a season and contributes to the local depletion of honey bees and a major source of tree flower pollination. Replacing cotton with soybeans is an important way COMACO hopes to rebuild local forests.
- Water retention structures in exchange for community commitment to better manage local forests
The Luangwa Valley watershed has lost much of its forest cover from land clearing and
repetitive bush-burning. This has reduced its capacity to retain rainwater and recharge
groundwater. On a small scale, COMACO has begun to work with communities to help
build water retention structures that will provide increased supplies of water in exchange for local commitment to better manage their surrounding forests. Such earthen dams also increase water retention in the soil to maintain healthier ecosystem functions. It is a long process. Adding economic value to these dams and maintaining conservation compliance to their use may help facilitate a scaling-up of this approach to watershed management.
