As mentioned above, in some parts of the reserve, after clearing for charcoal individuals moved in to open farm areas. As a result of multiple years with less than normal rainfall, and periods of intense rains and flooding, more people encroached on the reserve to farm on virgin land. This left parts of the reserve bare, leading to increased runoff, downstream soil erosion, loss of soil fertility, and declining agricultural productivity (and increasing food security). 

In 2020, the Government of Malawi with support from USAID and UKaid co-funded Modern cooking for Healthy Forest (MCHF) and began raising awareness of communities on the downstream impacts of deforestation and degradation. Shortly thereafter the partners began delivering training to communities in Traditional Authority Kamenya Gwaza on assisted natural regeneration and fire prevention and management. Community members are organized into BMCs, with the aim of implementing FLR activities in the identified degradation hotspots. these BMCs have continued to implement restoration activities within these hotspots. One of the first activities that the BMCs implemented was to sensitize encroachers of the protected reserve on the impacts of forest land degradation.  The efforts led to 60% of the encroachers moving out of the protected area.  Later, the Traditional Authority organized to have the remaining encroachers removed from the FR. The areas which have been cleared and farmed remained as "fallow" in 2021, however, regenerants began to reappear and the BMCs have conducted ANR and fire prevention in these areas.