SHOCK discovery - shopping in Pemba

Last night we were off to meet an interesting old friend of Dominik’s, Rob Primmer, who is setting up a large scale UN timber certification process to facilitate carbon credits and stem the vast illegal trade here.

On the way I decide to begin a spot of Christmas shopping so nip out at a large tourist shop.  There under the shade of the bamboo constructed shop is a Chinese man sitting on a stool surrounded by 5 or so sellers unpacking the contents of their rucksacks...ivory carved into many different artefacts and the buyer is handling a large carved tusk, ironically carved into a herd of elephants pursued by a lion....not a poacher.

My word – I am gobsmacked and feel a cocktail of emotions including anxiety – I must do something?  This is happening in broad day just there next to the road and opposite the beach front, a shocking gauge of normalised behaviour, supply and demand.  I run to find Dominik and get his camera and return, smile and look innocent when I ask ‘what material is that?’...”plastic” they smile back.  At this point the largest tusk has been hidden.  I handle the small tusks just to check and indeed there are the growth marks and nerves of elephant teeth.  I then pose as a buyer and ask to see that beautiful carved piece I saw earlier – he then revels that that is ivory and expensive...’Oh how much?’, say I...  ‘$300 but we can negotiate’.  Ivory is now fetching $850/ kg on the black market (a couple of years ago it was $300/kg) and this tusk would have been at least 3 kg- so it is nothing, so very cheap the market must be flooded.

Here are the photos for you and a slice of reality – as Dominik put it simply ‘when you have any resource in a poor country there will always be a supply.’  A ‘resource’...for someone who is emotionally hard wired to elephants and their conservation this was a very surprising calm response.  He usually has what I term Ivory Tourettes – if he smells illegal trade or encounters a known poacher he cannot stop himself from a loud exclamation – such as ‘he’s a poacher!' 

A sadly resigned and subdued response to a problem that now seems to me huge and heavy -  like a bull elephant’s tusk...and a conservationist’s heart.

WILDLIFE NOTE: Mocking Cliff Chat – new range...new inappropriate behaviour

A bit of background to what has become a very noisy and intrusive permanent resident...

We first noticed the new addition to our familiar ‘courtyard’ wildlife – the Mocking Cliff Chat in the summer.  It arrived in August and became part of the immediate surroundings next to the house, always popping up on the swing or log pile or similar.

It is the size of a large blackbird but distinctive in all manner of other ways - its orange breast with black surrounds, loud call and wagging tail.  It has a bold nature that was initially rather endearing, well until the swallows and swifts appeared to nest in October...

We have a wonderful breeding colony of striped swallows and white rumped swifts (not their correct names - will add later when book is at hand).  Their mud houses are glued all around the guest rooms and reception/our bedroom - it is very much their home as well.  They are so at ease that they use our bedroom as a thoroughfare and on occasion the swifts fly around in formation never landing, an amazing sight (until after hours of ignoring the two large open doors you begin to worry they may never leave.) The beautiful swallows also come in but they just land on the ornate metal ceiling light and look very decorative while chatting away in groups of up to 5 at a time.

But the Cliff Chat was spotted marauding their nests, unbalancing the old mud casing and flinging out any early chicks.  This went on for days, popping in and out of every nest causing much devastation with a cheery ease of spirit.  We quickly looked it up in our thick Bird Book to discover nothing is reported about its normal behaviour.  We could only discover information about its detailed markings, call and range but nothing about habits.  This was a mysterious discovery are birders not interested in behaviour?  Our mammal guides are full of insights into such things.

At this time Malcolm (our visiting bird guide and expert Ringer) arrived and was very  excited by the Cliff Chat presence as it is out of its normal recorded ‘range’.  And even more excited when he caught the male and managed to put a ring on it.  Dominik commented ‘did you ring its neck’?  Perhaps a little strong but it is doing our swallow and swift colony no good at all.  Anyway – we are now building up more insights into the behaviour of this bird that has extended its range...

Can you see the two Cliff Chat chicks....?

It has chosen a swallow’s nest to commander, right outside our door, and wakes up and starts calling even before the cockerels and then...begins its ritual of coming into our room and looking at its self in the mirror.  It clings on to the side of the small square mirror and pears at its reflection and pecks – at least 10 times before 5 am.  It continues this behaviour throughout the day and even when I am sitting at the desk it will land on the stable door look at me and glide over to take another look at itself....what is this about?  Is it new range new behaviour, a vanity associated with different climes, habitats or a new sense of competition with the striped swallows?  Hard to say and unless a Cliff Chatt enthusiast reads my blog I am not sure how to discover?

Also finally – with its shining new ring and a neck in tact it is successfully bringing up two babies who will carry on this behaviour in their new range!

(I have a video too which I will try to upload once free from 'dial up')

BIG rain and hope for Christmas

The rain has come – thank heavens.  The day before yesterday ‘Grande chuva’ – big rain, firstly 44.9 then 10.1, so 55 mm in all, in just two days. The heavens opened and the rain thundered so loudly it reverberated in every bone and I wondered if the roof might collapse!  Now there are rivers of sand in unexpected places and half the kitchen did collapse and was swimming with muddy water and straw. (I discovered all manner of hidden old packets - soup, flour, yeast, chocolate powder that were quite disintegrated.)

We have one light we run from the solar panel in the main all-purpose room, which serves as an office and our bedroom (which is rather misleading and grandly called the Reception). This light now brings in all sorts of insect life which has sprung from nowhere.  And the bit that I find wearing...the background buzzing has begun, a constant hum of unmelodic insect communication.  The noise mainly comes from those cicadas, Christmas beetles, and the hum will now build to an unbelievable and mentally disturbing crescendo as the rainy season really takes hold.

But despite the insect life, the most amazing thing is how quickly things change from dusty orange terrain with skeletal trees and ragged bushes to everything being touched by a verdant green brush – you can almost see the grass growing.

And the other mysterious thing is that the signs of pending rain are quite different here, black clouds are not a sure indication, they can pass quickly and may leave very localised patches of rain or nothing.  But when a ‘big rain’ is going to hit you just feel it, you feel like you have been hit ...over the head, I become so hot and lifeless and wonder what on earth has happened to me and then the large fat drops begin and slowly you are restored - like the dry land.

There had been a prolonged drought here for  6 years with between 700-900mm, a normal year has more like 1200mm of rain.  Last year saw some improvement and everything was much healthier.  And now I am really hoping that the rain continues over the next few weeks.  Dominik can only stop worrying about the animals being poached when the bush closes over from tangled new growth and becomes waterlogged and thoroughly alive.  Then the poachers sit in their houses and find other pursuits, including making their snares in preparation for the slow drying out and dying back in late March.

Anyway – rain is here, all is happier and it may even mean we can come to England for a relaxed (and very cold) Christmas...

City v Bush - life in Pemba on the Indian Ocean

I thought I would try to explain the Pemba side of existence here, I will attempt to paint a picture of the urban counterbalance to Mareja.



Festa and Amigo - guard dogs, off duty!

Our house in Pemba is a bunker behind a high fence.  Dominik has two dogs Amigo a bouncing collie-cross and Festa who I call the ‘Boiled Carpet’ – it is meant as a term of endearment, but she does really look like she has been put accidently through a hot wash.  She has some Alsatian and a manner of other things in her heredity.  She was a rescue dog and carries the scars of maltreatment.  They are quite different – Amigo greets you like a child hyperactive from fizzing drinks and Festa wobbles towards you very slowly and meekly.  They are wonderful guard dogs, playing quite different roles and our companions.  They cheer me hugely.  On high days we all take a trip to the beach and they are washed in the sea (which they don’t greatly like and they particularly hate D’s love of exfoliating using sand, well in my view, but either way they enjoy the attention). 

The house has always been near the hospital but last year they changed the position of the entrance and now the large concrete facade with its sweeping approach for ambulances is bang opposite our door.  We are shielded by a thick fence of bougainvillea – but sadly it is not a defence against the fat malaria ridden mosquitoes that visit and the night wailing. However, our Guards love it, as it has bought the city to our door step.  They now have cigarette sellers, women with pastries and many family members just there – visiting hospital is a long-term commitment you have to be prepared to wait and wait and wait.

Shielding the hospital facade

I used to dislike bougainvillea – too brash and clichéd, of holiday villas in Greece...but now I LOVE it.  As well as lurid pink, it comes in orange, pale pink, deep red and refreshing white - it is so predictably happy and robust despite the surroundings.  In the ramshackle yard around the back of the house, which is mainly a graveyard for Landrovers past, we also have two frangipani trees, one pink and one white.  These are the most wonderful thing, their simple shape and sweet smell spells indulgence (reminds me of sunny Australia) – and they lift the less than indulgent surroundings considerably.

 

Pemba is hard to describe.  The eyes of a new comer see grass rooves, casing mud houses, stretching to a bright blue sea. Colourful people everywhere, vehicles clumsily meandering about until they are parted by a noisy bus - that is so loaded with all of life that its metal bottom in inches from the tarmac and you wonder a lot how it got from there to here.  There are crustacean of small shops ‘baracas’ lining every turn and these shops all sell the same bright packets of cigarettes, stale biscuits, bags of rice and imported sweets  - the only thing that differentiates them is the ‘magic’ they have bought to aid their sales.  And these small bamboo shops are encased by a layer of street sellers sitting on the ground with mangoes or peanuts or beans or baskets. 

Then you go into the ‘centre’ and see more concrete and start learning about the market with its profusion of thin plastic wares imported from China, again being sold in different combinations by every seller, of which there are many...  Of course there are the odd retail giant who imports all sorts and charges hugely to the expats and Mafioso, such as Osman the Indian seller who has a huge glass facade and sells everything within reason – party hats, Baby belling cookers, plastic thermos flasks, bicycles.

 And in the middle of Pemba and along various bits of the huge bay there are also remnants of its crumbled colonial Portuguese past, sudden features of grandeur – a domed leaded window, imposing doorway, ornate column no longer attached, a decorated concrete moulded fence, then a mysterious but beautifully simple art nouveau bus station now behind a barrier of ‘chapa de zino’ – corrugated iron, one of the greatest symbols of progress.  (If you can replace your grass and bamboo roof with a chapa de zino, you may boil but you won’t be damp in the rainy season and mainly you will be seen to be  .)

Taking a stroll into town with baby and umbrella

Once you venture off the main road you stumble across mounds of rotting rubbish, meet street dogs and enormous pot holes.  In between this there are aid agencies such as the Rainbow Church that runs a huge school, the Microbank run by Aga Khan Foundation, Humana for second-hand clothes –  to mention but a few of many.  (At a recent visit to Humana, it was surreal to discover Boden striped shirts, a vintage pair of Beeba shoes and an elegant pashmina scarf, items obviously discarded in Kensington!  I bought the scarf for 100mt, $3, more useful for the frozen north.) 

Then on the outskirts and at the port, there is another world, hidden unless you can read the signs.  Large unmarked temporary buildings obscured by rickety fences with adjoining yards. Cruise liners linger waiting for ‘resources’ to freight to Asia – timber, sea cucumbers, cotton seed, cowry shells...ivory.  It all happens behind high metal gates, so you can only wonder.

My favourite Pemba photo -
all sorts to notice, inc. a wonderful hat

For me Pemba is confined and hectic, either in a hot room or a hot car or a restaurant drenched in mosquito spray and everywhere there is a plastic pace and endless busy humanity...however it does also hold sudden surprise images of humanity and the wonderful glow of human spirit. 

And there are a few other highlights... the pastry shop where I can get Pastel de Nata, an amazing unexpected sugary treat, Starfish a new venture run by a South-African couple who have found a spot slightly outside town with an uninterrupted view of glittering sea where you get proper coffee and can buy mince for Mareja. Then (when I have stopped thinking about food) the hidden layer of sellers behind the market – here the shops are full of materials – and as I have never been allowed to spend hours and hours sifting through the strange, graphic, colourful designs, it has formed a thrilling inner layer in my psyche, like the mysterious smear of cream in a jam roll, (food, even as a metaphor, is hard to escape).  One day I hope to slip away, alone, for excessive Mozambiquian material shopping fun.

 Dominik’s favourite place is Mare Sol which is on the beach front and he has been frequenting it for 15 years  now and gets a very warm welcome.  Unlike much else it has not changed - the service is slow, very slow but they do simple seafood and boiled potatoes with cold beer and while you wait you can watch all sorts of life on the beach.

 The beach front harbours the only real signs of tourism – and in my three years of visiting I have already seen great changes.  The one large hotel built by an Arab still looks enormous and polished and starkly designed for a floundering world tourist.  But now there are more hostels and lately a large Indian restaurant on the beach road to Russell’s Place – the backpackers hang out that attracts all the expats as it has TV and wireless connection, clever Russell (Australian).

So that is it a snap shot of Pemba but I must just add, it is of course surrounded by the Indian Ocean, and sits on apparently the third largest bay in the world.  And the sea is a whole other story...dotted with Dows, occasional home to breading humpback whales, with a steep coral shelf not far from the shore and once a refuge for the adorable and rare seacow, Dugongs, now hunted out...and it is all fished to pieces with mosquito nets. 

And the big news... recently they have found large gas deposits within the marine protection area.  Indeed a whole other story.

There is good and bad everywhere here, in blinding, sun-drenched contrast.











A Pemba day

Today is a day in Pemba, it is quite unlike our life at Mareja.  Perhaps that is obvious, it is not the wild interior but it not quite like other towns (and far from a Cotswold village.)  When here we seem to have two modes, flying around in the Toyota buying all manner of stores, frantically trying to get the dial-up web connection to work in the dark house OR suddenly doing very little to...nothing, because the shops are closed for lunch, the internet down and the heat and humidity weighing so heavily that being stationary is the only way.  And nothing ever goes to plan, not even vaguely and after a while you try to forget you even had a plan.

We were going to be here for one night and a day of restocking – now four days later we are still here (and I am not feeling very well and hoping it will pass).  A flavour of activities... the water pump broke in the house and gave Dominik a 240v shock and I didn’t hear his exclamation as I was buried in the hot office - after lying down and feeling peculiar for a while he thankfully improved.  (Running water was one of the few good things about being here!)

We have tried a lot to track down our TNT parcel, of Timberland sponsored boots, with no joy. We spent 3 hours in the post office in town watching 6 people opened 4 bags (1 person opened, 1 wrote things, 1 picked up the bags, 3 did nothing) and also visited the port depot twice - here we finally found an inventory, and worked hard at remaining level spirited with the highly disinterested man but there was no record of our parcels.  (According to TNT tracking website it is in a storehouse in Zambia, I had thought this an error but perhaps not? And perhaps it will eventually leave the storeroom - am still going to keep hoping, for now.)

We also had an important impromptu meeting with Jemuce (Unilurio), Rebecca and Nelson (Park), which led to two further meetings and we have agreed a final Memorandum of Understanding for research work at Mareja, a great success and worth a dedicated blog entry.  The document is currently in Nampula being signed, finger’s crossed.

 Also stocked up on tinned food, dried fish for the community, rice, stationary, nails and ‘lima’ metal files.  Bought Trisa some boots from a second hand store and some children’s shorts and a ladies dark green waisted top, so he has something reassembling a uniform now – am most pleased.  Satisfaction sapped a bit by returning to car to find an odd array of things stolen...soap, pestle and mortar, mosquito spray and special fizzy drink, the small back window was left ajar.

Anyway...if you would like you would like to know more about Pemba I am going to try to create a picture in my next entry.  Please read on!

Dancing dragonflies...and gold

The butterflies and dragonflies here are spectacular.  They provide shocks of colour suddenly to light up the undergrowth (outer and inner) or hidden camouflaged shapes to find – and unlike other wildlife watching they are totally undemanding, danger-free.   

Whenever there is water hole maintenance or damn creation to do I find a spot in the shade and watch the dragonflies.  They seem to have preferred perches and are quite territorial about their chosen spot.  Then they do quite different things with their wings...see my photos.  Is this part of their display, an alluring dance for me or another?

I would love to attract experts to study them, both dragonflies and butterflies – but they are like gold dust...these specialists.  It is one thing to identify the bright and exotic but the subdued end of the spectrum is demanding. 

I am sure we have a particularly rich and potentially rare collection of dragonflies here.  So these photos are to tantalise you and .... my friend Steve, from the Natural History Museum, one of these gold dust specialist.

With its Portuguese colonial past and troubled recent history Mozambique, and particularly the north, has not had a tradition of collecting and research.  Today we sit within one of the global biodiversity hotspots and an extremely rare habitat, East African coastal forest.

 There is so much to observe, learn, record, disseminate and conserve while ‘development’ creeps on....  I must attract funds and then the right people...gold meets gold.

BACKGROUND EXPLAINED: Mareja - what, where, how and...why?

(A summary of notes given to visitors)

Welcome to MAREJA! 

Thank you for coming here, and finding us, despite poor internet connection, little mobile coverage and a long winding track!  Tourists are the life blood of this project and your presence and support helps in many, many ways...

Mareja covers 36,000 hectares of miombo coastal forest, and contains much variety, with Inselberg mountains dotted about. A major river runs through the heart of the reserve and we have secured a beautiful fragment of Palm Forest from eager farmers.  Mareja was established over 15 years ago and now predominantly sits within the wider boundaries of Quirimbas National Park, which was designated in 2002.

Mareja is a community conservation project, everyone you meet benefits from the Community Association, which is funded largely by tourism.  The project provides food, housing, and health care, and all developments here are overseen by a Council of Elders. 

There is much to say about Mareja and we have only sketched in a few gaps here.  Dominik is a font of vivid and extraordinary stories, some of them simply unbelievable!  Or if Dominik is not about, Adamo, Nanquata or anyone else will help.  So please just ask, there is usually time for chatting particularly once the sun has gone down.  This is Africa where time is measured differently because today matters and tomorrow is tomorrow.

Activities

There are many options and we hope to offer you something that meets your particular interests and level of adventure.  We have a team of rangers, and as well as patrolling and protecting the reserve, they lead walks and look after visitors.  

Options include, bush walking, climbing the mountain Necanuwe (which affords a spectacular view of a sea of forest), bird-watching, safari drives, bush camps near the big river Magueada, fishing (using local techniques) and much more.

River Mageuada in the rainy season

Visitor, Luis, fishing with Ranger Assani

Wildlife viewing

Unlike a large game reserve in say Kenya or South Africa, we have less big game, and the mammals we have are highly secretive and deeply camouflaged in areas of dense bush.  They will hear and smell you long before you approach.  The excitement and pleasure comes from embracing the whole ecosystem and tuning into the diversity it has to offer – many insects, colourful birds, strange new plants, magnificent large trees, and if you are lucky some mammals and certainly signs of life in tracks and trails.  If we cannot show you elephants we certainly can show you their poo!

But the forest is a haven for a very interesting mix of mammals.  We provide a sanctuary for a small number of Elephant and the main game species are the magnificent Sable antelope and Kudu, with their distinctive twisting horns.  We probably have the only sustainable population of Sable in the southern reaches of the Park.  We also have Serval, Leopard and Lion.  Our three Wild Dog packs have not been seen this year which is a great concern.  We did however recently have a very exciting sighting of Golden Cat, a rare, elusive and understudied large cat species.  You will see many Baboon around the house as they like to help themselves to any food left unattended!  There are also large populations of Black-faced and Samango monkeys.  We have a fantastic bird life with many raptors such as Bateleur and Martial Eagle and hornbills including the very large Southern-Ground Hornbill .  (Please ask if you would like to see the Mareja bird list.)  Our awareness of plant, insect, reptile and amphibian diversity is also growing with research.

Why your visit matters

Primarily you prove that wildlife has a greater value alive than dead, and consequently forests need to remain standing to support these animals.  This may sound simplistic, but if you have lived here all your life the cash sum for an elephant tusk or a large mahogany is understandably tempting, indeed far more tempting than quietly guarding it, unrecognised, while you still eat cassava, rice and beans.  And the market for both ivory and timber is here on our doorstep in the form of cash in hand.  You will read about containers of illegal timber confiscated in Asia and captured hunters, but sadly this struggle is far greater than the odd success story.  Fighting these pressures is all consuming if you choose to make it your cause, and here at Mareja we have. 

We have been working for over 15 years now to try to find sustainable alternatives to poaching and illegal logging, and through daily rangering, a system of rewards and tourism, Mareja is still here and achieving many small successes... as you say in the local language, Makua Verkani  Verkani, little by little.

Some battles are just too big and hard - Black Rhino and Zebra were lost in the 80’s and 90’s, and Buffalo have suffered dramatically in the wider park in the last 4 years... from a healthy population of over 300, 5 years ago to no more than 10 or so in recent years. 

In the early 2000’s we managed to stop a major trade of illegal logging on the reserve and brought about the first fine for such operations.  On average our Rangers collect 1,500 snares a year and capture around 50 poaching groups.  Poachers usually operate in small groups of only 2 or 3, but on one occasion the rangers caught a group of 23 men and children with 17 nets planning to clear out an area of all small running game.

How it all began

Dominik went looking for a rare and beautiful piece of land that could be developed into a sustainable project.  As the war receded there were stories of hidden tracts of land and large animals still hanging on in the North of Mozambique.  He arrived in Pemba and heard tales of a derelict colonial house and surrounding farm so set off to take a look.  At that point there was still the odd mine, and the roads were.... well hardly ‘roads’.  It took him days of slow painful meandering and bush waking to find and create a track - for much of this journey he was accompanied by a pack of Lions.  Then he eventually drove straight into one of the pillars of the main house. 

At that point Dominik hardly spoke Portuguese and there was a surreal welcome...  Only 5 families were hanging on after the civil war.  One of the elders approached Dominik, greeted him in German and handed him a large metal key.  A key to a door that did not exist, to a house that had no roof and barely any walls!  He was welcomed like the returning hero.  But this elder, Palavi, assumed he was the related to the previous owner, Margareta Frier, the German lady who had left during the civil war.

People yesterday

Dominik established the project when only 5 families were still here after the civil war.  His friends and allies were Agali and Palavi, who both are now sadly dead, but these two taught him much about Mareja, its history, people and the pulse of life here.  He has a great deal to thank them for (indeed he owes his life to Palavi).  The project has been through many phases and developments, with all sorts of people lending their hands, time, spirit and energy.  Their input is contained in what you see around you, over 100km of hand-crafted roads, new buildings and much else that you can’t see.  Some people have been at Dominik’s side throughout, such as Unkaheli, Naquata, Antonio and Adamo who was only 12 when the project began and was initially involved in a children’s food growing project.

People today – you will meet:

Adamo	Guard and house help
Naquata	Guard and Elder
Antonio	Cook who lives in Sauli and bicycles over when called (on special occasions), he is now rather elderly
Maria	Maid and house help
Elias	Car Assistant and camp organiser
Mustafer	Guard and general assistant
Regulo, community elder but visits regularly; Untomar and Rainha, community chief and Queen (they all live in Sauli)
Our team of Rangers, “Fiscais”, who work under Ali Bacar, Head Ranger: Saleman, Jose, Trisa, Umpuperi, Unkaheli, Massalino, Bacar, Alberto.

Antonio the cook

Project structure and funds

Mareja is run as a joint venture between Dominik Beissel (Mareja Management Ltd) and a Community Association.  Money that is generated from tourism goes into the community fund – all income from tourism activities, such as walks, bird watching or camping and 50% of accommodation fees.  Part of the incentive scheme we run asks you to pay a small amount for any animals you are shown by Rangers – there is a reasonable scale from Warthog (10mt) to Elephant (70mt) and Lion (120mt) and just to put it into perspective the chance of actually seeing a lion is about 1:1000! (Although you may well hear lion ‘singing’ at night deep in the bush and that is free.)  

The future and funding

We cannot sustain and develop Mareja on tourism alone. Tourism successfully provides funds for the community pot but does not fund salaries, conservation activities or developments, so we are currently seeking other funding sources and creative income streams.  Some of our potential revenue projects are... selling homemade tiles, making amurula jam, planting sustainable crops such as the Sausage tree and promoting low-impact extraction of bamboo and non-timber products such as rope...but all these would require considerable management, investment and infrastructure.

Our aim is to make the project financially sustainable but this is a large and challenging task.  We hope one day that Mareja will be recognised for its ‘environmental services’ and a realistic price attached to maintaining the breadth of natural resources and benefits such an area provides –through water conservation, carbon sequestration, climate control, natural medicine, soil fertility and preservation, not to mention wildlife and landscape conservation and human recreation and spiritual renewal. There is a slow political shift towards valuing biodiversity rich areas in this way.

There has already been an increased awareness of the importance of carbon sinks and their role in climate maintenance.  It has been calculated that Mareja reserve is preserving 960,000 tonnes of carbon per annum.  In the UK the average carbon consumption per person is 12 tonnes per annum – so Mareja would provide carbon credit for a UK population of 80,000 people. The UK Government price of carbon £22 - £52/tonne, so the  carbon preservation value of Mareja is £21,000,000-£50,000,000 (or $31,000,000- $70,000,0000).  Wonderful figures that we can only dream!

Research and other developments

This area of Mozambique has traditionally been very understudied, much to do with its history and inaccessibility.  There is a great deal to learn about its biodiversity and the effects of modern pressures, such as climate change and logging on the environment.  Mareja covers 36,000 hectares of coastal miombo forest - a rare ecosystem with riverine habitats, fragments of Palm forest and Inselberg vegetation, which makes it an ideal place for scientific study.  We are also within what is termed a ‘global biodiversity hotspot’ - recognised as being one of the most wildlife rich areas in the world.

We are hoping to attract visiting scientists and establish a Research Centre.  To this end, we are working in partnership with the Park and the newly established local university Unilurio which runs a degree in Biology.  Together we plan to develop research, understanding and local capacity to protect such vital areas.  We have already worked with scientists from Maputo, Germany, Cardiff and Oxford University students.

Reserve management

The main considerations here apart from those already mentioned are: 

• controlled burning to stem the devastating later hot fires
• management of the invasive shrub species Lantana
• habitat protection: preventing illegal logging and poaching
• water conservation for habitat and game management
• supporting sustainable products: bamboo cultivation and grass cutting by the local community
• waterhole maintenance for local community and tourists
• infrastructure maintenance: roads and access

Would you like to help...?  Having learnt a bit more about the project, you may identify an area that you can help with - from community health, craft development to research or conservation. 





Skills transfer and training....in particular we always need skilled professionals who can help with mechanics, electrics, building, plumbing and water conservation. 

Scientists....we have a Research Plan we can share with you and would like to attract scientists and passionate researchers from all over the world. 



A water gallon held up with pride by a group of people from the local village, Nanduli



All food is brought on to the reserve - here are 3 types of local bananas

$...and last but by no means least...if you have any ideas or contacts for funding and financial support that would be really wonderful.