Geographic Area
The Miombo Woodlands in Sofala, Central Mozambique
The Miombo Woodlands, covering 2.7 million km2 (270 million hectares) in ten countries in Southern Africa, is the second largest forest ecosystem in the world, after the Taiga in Siberia. It contains an estimated 8500 species of higher plants, over 54% of which are endemic. The preservation of the Miombo has an important role to stop climate change and biodiversity loss. Over eighty million rural people and thirty million urban dwellers rely on miombo woodlands for livelihoods.
In the map below you can explore the locations where Fundação LevasFlor is actively engaged.
Miombo Woodland
Miombo woodlands, the most extensive savannah in the world, are dry deciduous forests characterized by an open tree canopy and a continuous grass layer that regularly burns. These forests provide essential ecosystem services such as carbon storage, energy sources, non-timber forest products, and habitats for biodiversity. They are critical to the livelihoods of over 100 million people in rural areas . However, due to deforestation and forest degradation, miombo woodlands are experiencing a decline in biodiversity and are releasing carbon into the atmosphere at an alarming rate.
Forest loss in the miombo woodlands is primarily due to smallholder agriculture, which accounts for 72.2% of the total forest change, and clear-cutting for charcoal production, which accounts for 9.1%.
(adapted from Sá Nogueira Lisboa et al 2024)