Upon his release after seven months in prison, Colson declared that he was a born-again Christian, and he devoted the remainder of his life to Prison Fellowship Ministries (PFM), which he founded in 1976.
"Ultimately, we aren't going to wake up and find that the shoemaker's elves have built Somalia a state-of-the-art PFM system overnight.
"When we started PFM," says Andrea Mbwambo, assistant forest officer, "some of our patrol were injured with pangas (local axes), some had their houses burned, and I was beaten by those who were harvesting in the forest".
In two years' time, the NGO will take a backseat, and it will be over to the government again to keep PFM alive.
"We need a campaign," says Ernest Moshi, PFM co-ordinator for Farm-Africa, "to mobilise people to plant more trees outside the forest".
Two years later, in the four villages of Mbulu district, PFM has not had the impact originally hoped for.
The district forest officers had not been assisting with PFM and communities had not even heard of district catchment forest manager Makia M Makia, even though he had already been in post three months.
Ernest Moshi, PFM co-ordinator, remembers: "We found that only one village knew where their management plan was, or what was in it.
In 2002, the NGO Farm-Africa helped establish PFM in 18 villages surrounding the Nou Forest.
