The change between the dates is strongly evident. Malawi is a country in which significant deforestation has taken place over the past 30 years. However, the Department of Forestry is significantly hindered by a lack of funds to do forest inventorying and monitoring throughout the country. Current methods entail detailed inventorying of forested areas using a variety of manual techniques including on-site surveying, and when further funds permit, aerial surveying. But these techniques have not been very effective for routine monitoring.
Aerial surveying is done on an ad hoc basis, but on average every ten years.
These methods are significantly more expensive and not very efficient when constant monitoring is essential. Furthermore, since they rely on the visual delineation of forest stands, they are unable to detect changes in the density of forest cover. Our colleagues in the Forestry Department were aware that such poaching was taking place, but were surprised at the extent. The value of this analysis, however, does not stop with the simple awareness that this level of poaching is going on. Clearly there are differences from one reserve to another.