Portuguese carbon deal ‘locks’ Malawian forests for decades

Malawihas committed about 550 000 hectares of public forest, close to 6% of the country’s land area, to a 40-year carbon-credit arrangement before parliament has passed a dedicated law to regulate such deals. Carbon creditsare tradable certificates linked to climate action; typically, one credit represents one tonne of carbon dioxide — or its equivalent — reduced or removed. Companies and countries buy them to meet voluntary climate pledges or other targets.

The size of the concessions, the long exclusivity period and the absence of published benefit-sharing terms have alarmed lawmakers and civil-society groups. In late January 2026, Portuguese construction giant Mota-Engil reported to regulators in Lisbon that its agroforestry subsidiary, Mamaland, had signed an exclusive agreement with Singaporean commodity trader Trafigura to market and sell carbon credits generated from 14 Malawian forest reserves. In practice, this means estimating how much carbon the forests store or add over time, turning that into credits under an approved standard and then selling the credits to buyers.

The deal, worth up to $100 million (R1.6 billion) in upfront payments, gives Trafigura exclusive rights to buy and sell credits from the concessions for four decades. Government officials have pitched the project as a way to restore degraded forests, create jobs and unlock climate finance in one of the world’s poorest countries. Critics argue Malawi is binding future governments and communities living in and around the reserves, without first putting legal guardrails in place.

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“Malawi is signing 40-year contracts before it has basic rules,” Werani Chilenga, a former chairperson of parliament’s natural resources committee, said in a recent interview with a local publication about stalled carbon legislation. “We are risking our forests becoming a playground for foreign companies while our people remain spectators.” The core uncertainty is: Who, in law, owns the right to sell carbon stored in public forests? Bruce Sosola, the chief technical officer and co-founder of Natural Capital Advisory, calls carbon rights a “million-kwacha issue” because they are “implied rather than explicitly written” into Malawi’s land and forestry statutes. “If you look at the Forestry Act or the Land Act, you won’t find the words ‘carbon rights’ anywhere,” Sosola said.

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