Community Development

More than 140,000 people live around Majete, but until 2003, the reserve delivered almost no benefits, aside from the unsustainable and illegal use of natural resources. Devoid of wildlife, the park had few to no tourists and no revenue was being generated. However, this all changed with African Parks becoming a management partner of the reserve and launching community development initiatives.

Currently, Majete employs almost 180 members of staff, who come from the local area. More than 37,000 people receive health care every year from Majete supported clinics and Ministry of Health workers, while access to potable is provided through the provision of boreholes sunk in community areas where needed.

In and around the reserve, economic opportunities are constantly improving and benefitting thousands of people, who have also been supported by education, healthcare facilities and a profit-sharing scheme in the growing tourism sector.

Community Engagement

It is critical that communities are engaged, informed and empowered to participate in decision-making related to the management of the reserve and natural resources around it. To facilitate this, Majete has a governance structure comprising 21 Community Based Organisations (CBOs), serving as liaisons between African Parks, local communities and other partners, which in turn are represented under the Majete Wildlife Reserve Association (MWRA), a forum for the exchange of knowledge, experiences and challenges. A dedicated group engages with communities daily, hosting meetings where communication between Majete and the communities is enhanced: Majete provides regular updates about the reserve, where the communities can give feedback and make requests.

Education and Environmental Awareness

In Malawi, children in rural communities have little access to good education, with low enrolment in secondary and tertiary level education, often due to lack of funds for tuition. Majete’s scholarship programme provides tuition fees for some 120 students a year, enabling them to attend school at secondary or university level. In 2023, Majete provided seven workplace internships for Malawian students.

Environmental education programmes have also been developed, focusing on creating environmental awareness amongst school children. This is done in conjunction with regular school visits to the reserve; around 2,500 children visit annually. In addition, 37 Wildlife Clubs have over a thousand children learning about Majete’s wildlife and ecology.

Sustainable Enterprise Development

For Majete to continue as a wildlife reserve, it is vital that the people living around it benefit from its existence. As such, Majete invests in extensive livelihood programmes aimed at improving the reliability of food production, increasing income-generation opportunities and reducing the reliance on illegal resource harvesting by providing sustainable economic opportunities. Over 600 people are benefitting from enterprise development initiatives, more than double those in 2022.

One of Majete’s main community enterprises is beekeeping, an innovative social enterprise that empowers communities through the production and sale of high-quality organic honey as a source of income. Community beekeepers produced almost four tonnes of honey, up from three tonnes in 2022.

Other initiatives include climate-smart agriculture and fish farming, where Majete provides infrastructure including solar-pumped boreholes and water storage facilities, fishponds, fingerlings and fish food, as well as agricultural training. Sustainable use of natural resources, such as thatching grass and bamboo from inside the reserve, is managed as well as reforestation projects that will provide a sustainable source of timber for the communities, with over 70,000 indigenous trees planted in communities in 2023 alone. A C-Quest stove project has been rolled out, providing 23,000 fuel-efficient cookstoves to households to reduce the reliance on charcoal in the region.