About the project:

The Chimanimani Landscape Restoration Project (CLRP) is a 206,000-hectare (ha) holistic restoration initiative designed to balance conservation and competing needs of communities and forests in western Mozambique. The project takes a mosaic landscape restoration approach to maintain and restore the essential ecosystem services generated by the Chimanimani landscape. The project includes forest restoration, agroforestry, and community land use planning activities within Chimanimani National Park’s (PNC) 170,000 ha buffer zone, as well as Eden Reforestation Projects’ (Eden) current restoration sites near the Buffer Zone in Sussundenga District of Manica Province, Mozambique.

Chimanimani National Park (formerly Reserve) and its Buffer Zone protect the Chimanimani Mountains, which run along the border between Mozambique and Zimbabwe. These protected areas were established to prevent the degradation of sensitive Afromontane forest habitats from the impact of agriculture and uncontrolled fire, leading causes of deforestation in Mozambique due to Swidden (slash-and-burn) agriculture practices. In Mozambique, this agricultural practice accounts for 89,000 ha of deforestation per year, roughly 65% of the country’s total annual forest loss.

Chimanimani is known for its biodiversity and ecosystem services. In Mozambique, Chimanimani represents three-quarters of the Afromontane forest cover, and contains at least 78 endemic plant species. Additionally, the mountains are the source of the Buzi River, which provides water to central Mozambique and creates the estuaries that are home to Sofala province’s mangrove forests along the coast. The Chimanimani Mountains also contain spiritually and culturally significant sites that preserve Mozambique's cultural heritage and diversity.

Chimanimani’s extensive Buffer Zone is unprecedented in Mozambique and further supports the importance of PNC. While the park is 65,500 ha, the Buffer Zone creates a 170,000 ha semi-protected area that puts a barrier between the sensitive systems of Chimanimani and drivers of deforestation and degradation within the wider landscape. The Buffer Zone is a mosaic of villages, forest reserves, plantations, healthy and degraded forests, and agricultural production areas. It is also home to a remnant population of forest-dwelling bush elephants—one of few in southern Africa. Communities within and adjacent to the Buffer Zone depend on this landscape for subsistence and livelihoods. Despite its semi-protected status, the Buffer Zone has lost 36,950 ha of tree cover since 2000, primarily due to expanding agriculture and related fires in the lowland miombo forest areas and a lack of resources to support previous management plans.

In 2020, a renewed effort to protect the park brought several local stakeholders together to begin visioning the protection and restoration of the park. In addition to conservation work within the National Park, this vision will bring the 170,000-hectare Buffer Zone under strategic restoration and protection initiatives that will create sustainable livelihood opportunities.

In 2021, Eden began the restoration of almost 45,000 hectares of miombo forests in the northern part of PNC's Buffer Zone and adjacent areas. This ongoing work includes farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR), planting and monitoring nursery-raised seedlings, and agroforestry initiatives on community-managed land. This area has lost an estimated 4,250 ha of tree cover since 2000. In response to this work, in 2022, Eden was invited to implement agroforestry and restoration initiatives across the entire Buffer Zone as part of the park's updated management plan. As Eden expands its work in this region, the organization aims to work directly with communities in and near the Buffer Zone to incorporate restoration, protection, and agroforestry strategies into community land use plans to create a wide variety of ecological, social, and economic benefits. By developing projects that produce multiple benefits, Eden aims to reduce the impacts of this landscape’s drivers of deforestation.

To explore points of interest and learn more about our current and future work, click the “News” and “Sites” tabs above.

Core activities of this project include:

• Collaboration with stakeholders to develop & implement restoration plans for both government and community-managed lands in and near the Chimanimani Buffer Zone. There is significant momentum to protect and restore the Chimanimani landscape.
• Incorporation of additional degraded forest land into Eden's existing restoration and protection programs in Manica Province, Mozambique. Eden will be the primary restoration implementing partner in this landscape partnership.
• Addressing drivers of deforestation and degradation through fire mitigation efforts and agroforestry initiatives that promote soil health. These initiatives aim to reduce reliance on slash-and-burn agriculture.
• Identification and implementation of livelihood initiatives that can diversify the income of rural households, increasing their climate resilience and promoting new supply chains for non-timber forest products and agroforestry products.
• Mitigation of the early invasion of Lantana camara and Vernonanthura Polyathes, invasive shrubs that outcompete indigenous vegetation and impair the ability of degraded forest to regenerate naturally.

Stage of Development:

Initial restoration activities have begun, and we are expanding our activities to bring more of the Chimanimani Buffer Zone under restoration. This project is ready to receive funding to support detailed restoration planning for additional areas, early restoration activities, and to develop supporting initiatives that will sustain the restoration in the long-term.

Impact of your donation:

The anticipated impact of this project includes:

• A comprehensive, collaboratively developed restoration plan for high-priority restoration areas within the buffer zone
• Eight (estimate) community land use plans developed and implemented through this landscape partnership
• Millions of indigenous trees produced and monitored over the life of the project
• Increased forest connectivity within the landscape to support wildlife, water recharge, natural regeneration, and other important functions of this landscape.
• Increased protection of remnant forest, including habitat for forest-dwelling bush elephants (Loxodonta africana)
• Livelihood opportunities for communities adjacent to the buffer zone both through direct employment, seed collection, agroforestry programs, and complementary initiatives to be co-defined in later phases of project development.

About Eden Reforestation Projects in Mozambique:

Eden operates multiple restoration sites in Mozambique, including mangrove and miombo forest types. For more information, please visit Eden's website edenprojects.org.