Reforestation in Changalane, Mozambique

Mozambique is located on the Eastern coast of Africa, with 2,500 kilometres of Indian Ocean coastline facing toward Madagascar. 

Around 68% of the 31 million population of Mozambique live in its vast rural areas, and its population is relatively young – with around 66% of the country under the age of 24. Historically home to vast mangrove estuaries and forests, Mozambique’s forests have been largely decimated and destroyed due to intensive tree-cutting for firewood and charcoal.

In recent years, parts of Northern Mozambique have suffered from ongoing extremist threats. Conflict and unrest causes displacement to thousands of local Mozambican people. These ongoing conflicts also exacerbate existing development challenges such as providing access to education and healthcare. The population’s reliance on subsistence agriculture as a result of these challenges causes further environmental degradation.

Planting Partner

Our projects in Mozambique are run by Eden Reforestation Projects (‘Eden’) – a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose mission is to provide fair-wage employment to impoverished villagers as agents of global forest restoration.

Eden hire local people to grow, plant, and guard to maturity the trees planted through funding from our community – on a massive scale. As well as restoring forest ecosystems, Eden’s “Employ to Plant” methodology results in multiple positive socioeconomic and environment impacts.

The village of Changalane is unusual in the region, due to its majority adult-aged population, of which more than half are women. Historically, this village earned its livelihood through agriculture and the sale of coal, and high poverty rates mean the population relies heavily on its natural resources and forests for survival. The intensive practices of tree-cutting for firewood and charcoal has led to a heavily degraded environment.

The Changalane project employed 15 full-time nursery workers to plant and grow the seedlings, and 30 full-time planters from the local village. Through reforestation, we can help provide long-term financial stability to local families, as well as restore the terrestrial ecosystem.

Through the efforts of our planting partner, Eden Reforestation Projects, funding from our community supported the planting of over 2.2 million dry deciduous trees during the project period. These trees will help to re-establish a thriving ecosystem, and planting activities will prevent further deforestation by helping to alleviate local poverty.

Learn more about this project on Restor here.

In May 2023, we were fortunate enough to visit this site and see the progress being made here for ourselves. Having been concerned about the welfare of the trees when we heard there had been fires come through the site, we were anxious to see how the trees our community funded were getting on.

But there was no need for concern! Eden’s team have done an incredible job maximising the survival rate of the trees despite fires threatening the success of the project. A number of actions have been taken to make sure as many of the trees planted survive as possible, including selecting fire resistant species, and planting in islands surrounded by firebreaks made from grass removed from the interior of the islands. Combined with community sensitisation to reduce the frequency of fires on the site, the trees here are thriving!

We could see evidence of the fires, with some trees having blackened trunks and branches, but new, healthy growth was visible too. It’s remarkable how resilient these trees are, and we can’t wait to see them help to transform this landscape over the coming years.

Check out this video from our site visit to discover how Eden are working to mitigate future fires by planting fire-resistant species and creating firebreaks.