Kasungu communities thrive with sustainable beekeeping

For Banda, the turning point came in 2014, when conservationists began engaging communities around Kasungu National Park in sustainable livelihood opportunities. She was among the early beneficiaries trained in improved, environmentally friendly beekeeping practices. Her experience reflects the community-based conservation supported by IFAW through our flagship Room to Roam initiative, which aims to strengthen livelihoods while reducing pressure on natural resources.

Recently, IFAW supported intensive training for almost 400 beekeepers to improve their skills and the quality and quantity of honey produced by their hives.

Led by Honey Products Ltd, an organisation committed to preserving the environment while creating economic opportunities for Malawi’s community beekeepers, the training showed the beekeepers how to improve honey production so it can be bottled, branded, and sold commercially. 

Currently, the average output per hive is about five kilograms of honey. Properly managed hives can produce up to 45 kg per hive per season. “We’re hoping this might be possible with the December harvest,” said Phillip Namagonya, IFAW projects officer. “This could be a game changer for the incomes of local beekeepers.”

Healthy forests support thriving communities  

In Malawi, poverty and forest loss are closely linked. As rural families seek income, forests face growing pressure from activities such as charcoal production. Beekeeping offers a different path: earning money from healthy forests without cutting down the trees that support them. 

Honey and beeswax are among Malawi’s most important non-wood forest products. The Malawi Beekeepers Association has about 5,000 active producers, while Malawi’s annual honey production is estimated between 5,000 and 8,000 tonnes.  

Modern beehives and improved beekeeping methods can increase yields and household income. That economic value can give communities a stronger reason to protect forests rather than cut trees for illegal charcoal production. 

Healthy forests also provide the flowering plants and trees bees need. By expanding beekeeping and protecting bee forage, Malawi can strengthen livelihoods while reducing pressure on its forests. 

Covering approximately 2,316 square kilometres, Kasungu National Park has a long history of human interaction with the landscape.  

Formal conservation measures began in 1930, when the area was declared a Game Reserve. In 1970, Kasungu was declared a national park. Today, communities surrounding the park continue to depend on natural resources for their livelihoods, while growing populations are placing increasing pressure on forests, wildlife species, and other resources. 

This makes sustainable livelihood opportunities increasingly important. 

Beekeeping creates new livelihood opportunities 

IFAW, in partnership with Malawi Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW), is supporting efforts to strengthen community livelihoods while reducing pressure on the park’s natural resources as part of our Room to Roam initiative. Beekeeping has emerged as a key conservation enterprise with the potential to generate income without destroying forests or wildlife habitat. 

“Beekeeping is changing lives around Kasungu National Park,” says Bruce Sosola, IFAW Country Director for Malawi. “It gives families a reliable source of income, helps parents invest in their children’s education, and creates opportunities that do not come at the expense of nature. When communities can earn a living from healthy forests, they become some of the strongest champions for protecting wildlife and conserving these landscapes for future generations.”  

“We believe beekeeping, when done right, can transform people’s livelihoods. Honey is a commercially viable conservation enterprise with steady prices. It is a practical example of how conservation and community development can succeed together,” says Sosola. 

The potential benefits extend well beyond honey production. Bees play a vital ecological role through pollination, supporting agricultural production, plant diversity, and healthy ecosystems. Honey and other bee products can also contribute to household nutrition, traditional medicine, and income generation. 

The bee-keeping training team, led by Chancy Mhango of Honey Products, worked its way from south to north, along Kasungu’s elephant-proof fence. The final training of the week took place at Chisinga, a bustling community on the Malawi-Zambia border. 

“Many of the participants showed willingness to learn and committed themselves to practising beekeeping in a modern way. The participants’ knowledge and practical understanding of modern beekeeping practices was improved,” Mhango said. “This improves prospects for improved hive management and the production of high-quality honey in the coming seasons.” 

Each day, a small cavalcade of 4x4 vehicles loaded with beekeeping equipment, from honey presses and hives to smokers, to sparkling white protective bee suits, boots, and gloves, carried everything needed for the training.

“We must reduce high dependence on destructive activities, like illegal charcoal production. This generates a short-term income but destroys the forest and the environment. Beekeeping is a conservation enterprise and a long-term income-generating activity.” 

Research shows that as fuel sources, charcoal and firewood dominate Malawi’s energy mix; if exported, the annual foreign exchange income to the country would fall somewhere between that of tea and sugar. It’s a product for a very large domestic market, yet whose production is treated variously as either non-existent or illegal. 

This underscores the need for sustainable livelihood options such as beekeeping for communities close to protected areas. A surprising added benefit is the role bees can play as a buzzing, noisy deterrent to elephants intent on raiding crop fields and destroying property to reach harvests. 

Bees have long been used as a key tool for reducing human-elephant conflict,” says Namagonya. “Elephants simply don’t like the noise they make, and bees don’t like being disturbed and will attack elephants. Communities have used beehive “fences” for decades to protect themselves and their properties from elephants. 

Coupled with the 133-km elephant-proof fence built by IFAW along Kasungu’s eastern border with Malawi, beekeeping can help communities coexist more safely with wildlife. 

For Chricy Banda, a mother of seven children—four boys and three girls—and a long-time beekeeper, adopting new methods such as a climate smart agriculture has changed her view of the future. Her experience reflects a broader challenge, and opportunity, for communities living around Kasungu National Park. 

“Since learning the new approach, I have been able to send my children to secondary school. I also rear chickens, doves and hares at home,” she says. “I am now an advocate for sustainable beekeeping, climate-smart farming practices, and community fence protection because it is more rewarding and environmentally friendly in the long term to see co-existence between wildlife and humans.” 

For women like Banda, the reward is not measured only in kilograms of honey or money earned. It can also be seen in the ability to support families, invest in children’s education, and reduce dependence on practices that degrade the environment.  

Sometimes, the path to conservation can begin with something as small—but as powerful—as a bee.