Saving Tanzania`s national tree - African Blackwood Conservation

ASSOCIATE LAUREATE – SEBASTIAN CHUWA – TANZANIA
TANZANIA’S NATIONAL TREE, THE AFRICAN BLACKWOOD – OR MPINGO – HAS HUGE
COMMERCIAL, CULTURAL AND ECOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE. ITS DARK, DENSE WOOD
IS VALUED WORLDWIDE BY MAKERS OF WOODWIND INSTRUMENTS AND IS USED
IN TANZANIA TO MAKE INTRICATE STATUES. ONCE COMMON THROUGHOUT MUCH
OF AFRICA , THE NUMBERS OF SLOW -GROWING MPINGO ARE SHRINKING AT AN
AL ARMING RATE. IT IS FITTING THAT THIS “ TREE OF MUSIC” IS THE FOCUS
OF A COMMUNIT Y-BASED CONSERVATION PROGRAMME INITIATED BY TANZANIAN
BOTANIST SEBASTIAN CHUWA.
As a child growing up on the flanks of Africa’s highest mountain, Sebastian Chuwa could
not see the peak of Kilimanjaro from his home – its summit was obscured by big trees.
“Today we can see the peak from every corner of our land,” laments the 48-year-old botanist
who resolved in his youth to help protect the environment of his native Tanzania.
Over the past 15 years, Chuwa has concentrated his considerable energy on nature conservation at a grass-roots level, initiating community education programmes that have improved
living standards for many thousands of Tanzanians in the Kilimanjaro region. Thanks to
S E B A S T I A N C H U W A – TA N Z A N I A
Chuwa’s efforts, 15,000 of his compatriots have planted almost 600,000 trees in a region
whose ecology has been devastated by deforestation. These include around 30,000 African
PROJECT SAVE TANZANIA’S NATIONAL
blackwood, or mpingo trees (Dalbergia melanoxylon). Also known as “the tree of music”
TREE AND EDUCATE YOUNG
because of its widespread use in the manufacture of musical instruments, the mpingo is vital
PEOPLE ABOUT THE URGENT NEED
to Tanzania’s ecology as well as having immense cultural and commercial value.
FOR CONSERVATION
Chuwa has long been concerned about the future of the mpingo – which is also Tanzania’s
PROJECT LOCATION NORTHEAST TANZANIA
national tree. “In spite of its great importance, there have been almost no efforts to monitor or
conserve it,” he says. Fewer than three million mpingo trees remain in Africa, yet more than
20,000 are felled in Tanzania every year – an alarming figure considering that they take
between 70 to 100 years to reach maturity. Mpingo wood is used for fuel, medicinal and
ceremonial purposes, and as a building material. Its leaves provide fodder for some of
the great migrating herds of the Serengeti plain, while its roots support specialised bacteria
that fix nitrogen in the soil, increasing its fertility. As well as being used worldwide to make
woodwind instruments, the dense, finely textured wood of the slow-growing mpingo is used
by the Makonde people of southern Tanzania to carve intricate statues and other artefacts. In
fact, mpingo is one of the world’s most valuable commercial timbers, selling for up to $20,000
a cubic metre.
During the next five years, Chuwa plans to expand his educational activities and establish
nurseries in an area known as the Northern Circuit, which contains several of the country’s
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Teaching tomorrow’s citizens about their natural
heritage is one way Sebastian Chuwa hopes
to preserve the mpingo or African blackwood tree,
a slow-growing, but immensely valuable resource of
his native Tanzania. Large-scale deforestation attests
to the popularity of the mpingo for fuel, medicine and
building material. It is also prized by woodwind
musicians throughout the world, including the clarinet
and oboe players in the Geneva-based Orchestre de
la Suisse Romande. The wood is highly stable under
temperature and humidity extremes, and its tight grain
and oily nature take high polish. The Associate
Laureate also encourages the planting of faster
maturing crops, such as coffee, to aid the economy.
A woman in Moshi waters her small coffee grove.
Makonde craftsmen of southern Tanzania create
striking carvings from the dense, two-tone wood.
With Chuwa’s help, the Makonde people now have
land of their own to grow mpingo and other hardwoods.
Two young boys, who are nurturing their own mpingo,
show Chuwa a damaged branch, broken when
someone pulled on the limb.
ASSOCIATE LAUREATE – SEBASTIAN CHUWA – TANZANIA
national parks and protected areas. This project, for which Chuwa has been selected as a
2002 Rolex Associate Laureate, will, in his words, “build on the efforts we have already
started”. He intends to establish 10 new nurseries and, with the help of two new assistants,
“set up lines of distribution so that local people can have easy access to seedlings and be
taught how to raise them properly”. The seedlings grown will be those of trees that people find
most helpful in their daily lives, Chuwa adds, although he hopes to ensure that one tree in
every three planted will be an mpingo. By planting at least 20,000 mpingo trees a year, the
long-term survival of the species should be assured.
Inspired by his herbalist father’s love of the natural environment, Chuwa studied wildlife
management in his home town of Moshi, before going on to work as a research assistant for
the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority. He returned to the foothills of Kilimanjaro in the
early 1990s and, eager to mitigate the long-term results of the deforestation, established
a seedling nursery in his garden. From there he distributed plants to local residents, as well
as teaching them about the importance of replanting trees. In 1992, he began working with
the Malihai (“living wealth”) Clubs of Tanzania, established to teach young people to care for
themselves and their surroundings.
Realising that many schoolteachers had never visited their country’s national parks and
conservation areas, Chuwa implemented an education programme that not only took them to
see “the wild animals and plants that are part of our natural heritage”, but also showed them
how to include environmental studies in their curricula.
Chuwa’s enthusiasm and true spirit of enterprise have also produced many other environmental
schemes, including a project to stop the indiscriminate use of pesticides. He has even started a
choir “to sing about protecting the environment and saving species like the rhinoceros and
mpingo tree”.
A map of the world brightens a wall at the Weruweru
Many people have commented on Sebastian Chuwa’s dedication and energy. Eminent
primary school, where 14-year-old Sylvia Victor brings
primatologist Jane Goodall refers to his achievements as “fabulous”. Tanzanians know him
to class a branch from a large mpingo tree that grows
more simply as “the man behind mpingo”.
in her uncle’s maize field. Fifty years ago there were
30 or 40 mpingo trees in the area. Now this tree,
which Chuwa is delighted to find, is the only one left.
Sylvia’s uncle and his village use the tree for
medicine, roasting mpingo with other woods for a
remedy to extract poison, such as from a snake bite.
They also roast the leaves and mix them with milk
to make an emetic for food poisoning.
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