Sustainable forest management on the Niassa Reserve: A Bioversity Project Report

The Niassa National Reserve (NNR) extends over 42,000 km2 along the Mozambique border with Tanzania and includes one of the least disturbed areas of Africa’s deciduous miombo woodlands. It was established to protect wildlife and also includes populations of a number of the world’s threatened tree species.

A Bioversity project is studying the relationship between the people living in the reserve and the tree species that are important to them. Researchers are examining if the use of these trees is placing them under threat, and if so, will recommend sustainable alternatives to the reserve managers.

About 40,000 people live in the reserve and use the trees for many purposes: providing fuelwood for home cooking and producing charcoal for sale; food, medicine, timber for construction, carving cultural objects, dugouts, fishing rods, fish traps, furniture, talismans and as honey sources. Honey hunting (as opposed to producing) is practiced by some rural people while others catch and smoke fish from the rivers, for sale outside of the reserve. 

Theirs is not a cash-based society - on average they earn about $35 US per year - and people eke out a precarious existence. Homes do not have electricity, or floors, let alone motorised vehicles, and only some can boast of a bicycle. They grow a small number of crops that can withstand low soil fertility and are moderately productive in spite of the long dry season. Chickens and occasionally goats are in evidence at some of the better-off households.

Trees having edible fruit or leaves are especially important in times of food shortage; the between time after last year’s harvest runs out and before the next one is collected.  As a young local man explained, “In times of crisis, trees are our friends."

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