Parque Nacional da Gorongosa Moçambique

Soaking up the mountain’s plentiful rainfall and releasing it downslope all year long, Mount Gorongosa’s forests are vitally important to the Park’s wildlife. The trees prevent the mountain’s soil from eroding into rivers and streams. They shelter many rare plants and birds that attract visitors from all over the world. They are essential to the health of an ecosystem that supports thousands of people.

Mount Gorongosa’s forests also affect the Earth’s atmosphere. The trees naturally soak up carbon dioxide, making the air cleaner for all of us to breathe. Every time trees are cut for traditional slash and burn farming, the forest’s carbon sequestration capacity is reduced.  Burning also releases the carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, adding more greenhouse gases into the air.

Forest Protection
Mount Gorongosa’s forests will only remain healthy and intact if the communities living on the mountain are working for and benefiting from their protection. We are actively enlisting community support for protecting the forest by showing how a healthy forest ecosystem can provide a better future for families than a deforested mountain. In order to develop this important partnership with local communities, we are carrying out community meetings and education sessions with local leaders.

Tree Planting
We are collaborating with people in several mountain communities, including Canda, Nhankuku, Murombodzi, and Nhambirira, where we have developed nurseries to propagate seedlings in order to restore deforested areas and stabilize the soil.   Already five nurseries have been constructed, with the capacity to produce between 1500 and 3500 seedlings at a time.

Locally-hired crews build the nurseries in areas designated by the communities, and use locally-available materials wherever possible for their construction.  These crews also collect seeds of native tree species like Panga Panga (Millettia stuhlmannii) and Albisia, along with seeds of grasses and other herbaceous plants to be used for stabilizing stream banks.  The seeds are germinated and cared for in the nurseries until the seedlings reach an adequate size to be planted along streams to stop soil erosion and on abandoned machambas (farmland) to bring back the forest. 

Ângelo Vicente, the forestry technician supervising the crew based in Nhankuku, explained that the crews are also implementing more sustainable planting techniques.  “We are teaching the crews to leave the grass they cut in the fields where they have planted the tree seedlings.  When you leave the grass on the ground around the seedlings, the moisture of the soil is maintained and this helps the trees to grow.”  Ângelo also oversees the crew’s work to put in terraces where the ground is steep, as well as their work with communities to implement a plan that would keep all machambas at least four meters away from waterways.  Both of these techniques reduce erosion of the mountain’s precious soils.

The nurseries and planting programs provide jobs that are much more sustainable than slash and burn agriculture, and that help provide a meaningful way for the communities to contribute to the health of their mountain. 

“Plantar Para a Vida”
The schoolchildren of several mountain communities are also involved with restoring Mount Gorongosa’s forests. The program Plantar Para a Vida (Plant for Life) involves the students in planting trees raised in the community nurseries.  They plant these saplings into fallow machambas near the schools that have been offered to the program by the communities in the interest of conservation.  Through the program, the children learn the importance of trees for the health of Mount Gorongosa and its residents, and learn skills to restore and conserve the mountain.  “The children love to watch their trees grow,” says Ângelo Vicente, who oversees the Plantar Para a Vida program in Nhankuku.  “We can see them developing pride in these young forests.”  Gorongosa Restoration Project staff plan to expand the environmental education programming that is part of the Plantar Para a Vida program to more schools in on Mount Gorongosa in the coming year.

YOU CAN HELP!
We need your help in this important campaign to protect one of Mozambique’s most treasured natural wonders--before it’s too late. More>