Run 4
Reforestation
5K / 10K / 21K
When: Early September, every year
Where: Zomba Plateau OR wherever you can run in the world :)
The Run4Reforestation is a sporting event aimed at raising awareness and funds for TREEZ and Zomba Plateau.
Why
Run/Walk/Cycle/Amble
4 Reforestation?
To skip the why and go straight to info about Run, click here
🌳 90% of Malawi depends on wood 🌳
That's the problem.
Here's what TREEZ (and your fundraising) is doing about it:
In Malawi, trees aren't being cut down carelessly. They're cut for charcoal to sell to growing cities; for firewood to cook on; for brick-burning and timber, because people want a solid home and can't afford to buy one. Deforestation here isn't ignorance — it's desperation. And the consequences are everywhere: streams that only run in the rainy season, topsoil washing off hillsides, temperatures rising without shade, water tables dropping lower every year.
Our progress pictures tell a story. The first pictures show what deforestation does — bare slopes, eroded gullies, streams that no longer run year-round. The next ones show what happens when communities decide to fight back. That's our side of the mountain. And it looks different because of the people who chose to protect it.
TREEZ didn't bring conservation to these communities. They were already here. We just found a way to make protecting the forest worth more than destroying it — linking sponsorship for football teams, women's groups, and community organisations to real conservation work. We're not planting trees and walking away. We're paying communities to protect what's already growing — because a tree that survives is worth more than a tree that's planted and dies.
Seventeen community groups — football teams, netball teams, choirs, hip hop bands, village banking groups — each protect a designated area of the Plateau. Every year, we count the trees. More trees means more income for the group. It's a system that works because people have a real stake in the outcome.
And the results speak for themselves. When we introduced it with the football And the results speak for themselves. When we introduced it with the football teams, fires dropped by 90% — not because we asked people to stop, but because the teams went home and told their communities: don't start fires, because we're the ones who have to put them out. When we introduced survival rate payments, trees in the designated areas went up — because they're now worth more standing than cut down. The communities doing this work are stronger for it.
This year, Run4Reforestation takes place on Saturday 12th September — and we'd love you to be part of it. Choose your challenge, raise what you can, and help us carry this story further than we can reach alone. It would mean more than you know. 🌱