The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind, By Bryan Mealer

Deforestation in Africa is still a thriving conflict in today’s society. “Unlike other countries, deforestation in Africa is mainly caused by human activity, rather than for commercial use” (http://web.mit.edu , Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Citizens in Africa use wood for many purposes such as creating fuel, and other types of energy sources along with cooking. Although many highly educated persons have tried conducting a solution to this problem, they have not been able to come up with a final conclusion. People have realized that deforestation is an evolving problem that needs to be addressed, but it is hard to figure out an exact way to end it.

Citizens in Africa have many different uses for this local resource."Poverty and a lack of alternative income- generating opportunities mean many farmers in Malawi have little choice but to harvest forest resources for food, firewood, medicine, building

In this novel, the city Malawi where William lived, they faced the struggle of deforestation. This caused many problems and conflicts for the people who lived there. The government claimed to be cutting down the trees to make desks for local schools, but they never did. During the time when the book was written, investors would cut down trees in Malawi to make fields to plant more tobacco. Even at such a young age, William was able to realize how important of a situation this is and says “Few people realize this, but cutting down trees is one of the things that keeps us Malawians poor.” (Kamkwamba, page 82 ). Malawi used to be covered heavily in forests, but according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, scientists have recently come to the conclusion that forests now only cover 34.4% of Malawi. This just goes to show that deforestation can still have a huge impact, even in smaller countries within