Mozambique mangroves—research on impact of cyclones and restoration success 

Written By: 

Henriques Balidy—Agency for Environmental Quality Control, Ministry of Land and Environment,  Mozambique 

Célia Macamo and Salomão Bandeira—Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique  

Mozambique has committed to restoring 5,000 hectares of mangroves as part of its Mangrove Management Strategy (2020 – 2022). There is also a growing national research initiative that’s been looking at the role of mangroves in protecting against the negative impacts of cyclones.

Multiple cyclone impacts have been documented:

• Cyclone Eline and 2000 floods destroyed 60% of the mangroves in Limpopo’s estuary
• Multiple cyclones have impacted 47% of the Save river estuary
• More recently, Cyclone Idai (2019) battered and flooded the city of Beira.

A key recent finding from this research is that the active unblocking of creeks reinstates tidal inundation, which has led to a three-fold increase in restoration success.