This week on Peace Parks TV, seedling season has arrived in Banhine National Park! Here, communities practicing conservation-friendly agriculture place great value in cashew nut crops, which are a precious source of nutrition and income for the farmers.
Banhine has just provided Vasco Mbiza with ten precious cashew seedlings; he now plans to safeguard and grow them into healthy, nut-bearing trees. “I’m installing posts and a fenceline to make this enclosure, to protect the cashew seedlings from the goats,” he says. “We are very grateful for this opportunity, thanks to the park.”
Ercineta Joane Chaúque Iives in Hochane, and is a member of the local agricultural committee. “We’re planting these cashew seedlings so that we can help our children and grandchildren, with the hope that in the future these seedlings will provide us with cashews to sell,” she explains. “I’m very thankful for the support given by the park.” Dinís Maluleque, who has received 45 seedlings, agrees that it is an initiative with benefits that can span several generations.
Since 2018, through a formal partnership agreement, Peace Parks Foundation and Mozambique’s National Administration for Conservation Areas have been working to jointly protect, develop and restore Banhine National Park. Here, community development efforts are driving conservation-friendly agriculture to uplift livelihoods, with projects providing seeds and seedlings, farming resources, and training.
This first phase of the cashew project, involving 262 farmers of a total of 1000 planned, is being implemented by Banhine’s Community Engagement Team. It aims to prevent the harvesting precious natural resources, such as forests, which the community has depended upon. Now local farmers have the alternative of growing their own produce and making a living sustainably. The project is an important part of the park’s community development programme, supported through funding from the COmON Foundation.
In communities that no longer had cashew trees, the park’s team recognised the need to help them understand the advantages that can bloom within two to three years, when the nuts are ready for harvesting. Moises Abel Machava is Peace Parks’ Agriculture and Livelihoods Officer in Banhine. “Today, we’re teaching the method of planting cashew trees, in conjunction with other crops,” he says. “For example, in this field they grow cassava and beans, so we’re here to share how to combine cassava, peanuts, beans and cashews. By intercropping we can restore the fields, and this is an important aspect of conservation agriculture.”
Moises is helping to introduce this technique to the majority of the producers in the community, so that they can adopt this planting system to recover poor and infertile soils. Restoring the richness of the land brings crucial long-term benefits to the community, allowing their farming to yield healthier crops over time.
But there is a significant challenge to successful agriculture in this region. “The only issue might be with water, because we’ve been struggling with scarcity during the dry season,” Ercineta says. The park experiences extreme seasons and a highly variable climate, from incredibly dry or even drought-stricken to flooded. In areas that have low rainfall and poor groundwater quality such as Banhine, Peace Parks is actively working alongside the local communities to implement solutions to improve year-round access to water.
The park and those dependent on its natural resources are on a promising journey of productivity, and we hope to see these seedlings and livelihoods flourish! Stay tuned to Peace Parks TV for more stories on Banhine’s restoration and development.
