Mozambique has established legal protection for Mount Mabu, creating the 9,341-hectare (23,082-acre) Mount Mabu Community Conservation Area and granting stewardship of the forest to the local communities that have conserved it for generations. The decree was published on Aug. 24 by the Ministry of Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries, and dedicates the land to protection, conservation and sustainable use under community management.
The Story in Pictures
The designation secures habitat for a high number of endemic species, notably more than 200 recorded butterfly taxa and a seasonal congregation of butterflies at the summit. Each October and November, hundreds of butterflies assemble each morning on Mount Mabu’s 1,700-meter (5,577-foot) peak in a mating behaviour known as hilltopping, a phenomenon David Attenborough documented in 2013 that helped popularise the forest as the "butterfly forest." Scientists say further surveys could raise the known butterfly total toward 250 taxa.
Researchers have documented strong levels of endemism across the mountain. Since 2005, more than 30 species newly described to science, including frogs, chameleons, bats and insects, have emerged from Mabu’s forest. Field teams have also described species bearing the mountain’s name, such as the cobalt-blue butterfly Iolaus mabuensis, collected by a 2008 research expedition and known from a single specimen to date, and the Mount Mabu forest viper, Atheris mabuensis, first identified in 2009.
“It’s a great relief,” said Julian Bayliss, an ecologist who led surveys over two decades that contributed to the protection case. “These forests are very important because they’ve got high levels of endemism.” Mount Mabu contains what researchers describe as one of the largest remaining continuous blocks of medium-altitude forest in southern Africa, with steep ridges and valleys that produced microclimates and isolated lineages over millennia.
The new protection recognises community custodianship but leaves operational detail unresolved. The decree assigns management to local people, while any specific activity restrictions will be set out in a community management plan that has not yet been finalised. José Monteiro, executive director of ReGeCom, which works with local communities at Mabu, said, “All of this effort is a recognition of the community that protected the forest.” He added, “The community, over a long time, kept the forest standing.”
Mount Mabu’s main pressures remain encroachment from small-scale agriculture and logging, though the forest is largely intact and treated as sacred by local residents. The next steps will hinge on completing the community management plan and translating legal status into on-the-ground conservation and sustainable use led by the communities granted stewardship.
