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The Malawi forestry sector is in the midst of a process which aims to increase private sector participation in plantation forestry. The rationale for this is that plantation forestry is essentially a business and therefore if not executed efficiently and effectively asset degradation and falling production occurs, as is currently the case in Malawi. Governments typically are not good at doing business. The private sector puts profit as the most important objective and a plantation can only be profitable if it is well run and productive, hence the logic that privatisation will lead to well-managed and productive plantation estate.

In order to facilitate Malawi's forest privatization process the Forest Planation Initiative Malawi (FPIM) project has examining the possible consequences of increasing private sector forest management on the welfare of local people. Lack of employment and the failure of agriculture to meet the basic needs of large sectors of Malawi's population means that poor people are forced to adopt multi-strategy livelihood support systems. Those communities who live near Malawi's plantations, particularly those in the central and southern regions, are heavily reliant on the plantations as a source of work and wood with which to generate income and meet domestic needs.

This study was commissioned with an aim of gathering information on the socio-economic importance of the Zomba plantation. Zomba was selected because the level of use by local people is particularly high in this site.

The papers findings and concluding remarks include:

• the contribution of Zomba plantation to the livelihoods of the local people living at its periphery is immense
• most of these job or income opportunities do not offer the security of a permanent job, many are part-time or seasonal and few offer a pathway out of poverty
• some of the opportunities are more lucrative and business owners can invest and expand
• in addition to income many households, approximately 9000, use products directly at home for their daily life - the most important "home use" product is firewood followed by off cuts, poles, bamboo, fruits, herbal medicines, mushrooms and grass
• the income generating activity which supports the greatest number of people is firewood vending.
• the firewood survey estimates a harvest of about 10,500 m3 per year - considering that some areas were not sampled and some collectors were not enumerated the real figure is probably closer to 12,000m3.

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