The Genesis of Conservation at Mpatamanga

From Threatened Miombo Woodland to More Than Half a Million Indigenous Trees

The conservation story of Mpatamanga began in the Miombo woodland overlooking the Shire River and the dramatic Mpatamanga Gorge in Malawi.

It is a landscape of extraordinary natural beauty, but when I began my conservation work there more than twenty years ago, it was also a landscape under considerable pressure.

Charcoal burning and illegal logging were taking their toll. Indigenous trees were being cut for fuel and timber, gradually degrading woodland that had taken generations to establish.

The loss of a single tree may appear insignificant. Repeated thousands of times across a landscape, however, the consequences are very different. Wildlife habitat disappears, soils become increasingly vulnerable to erosion, biodiversity declines and the ecological resilience of the woodland is weakened.

The economic realities behind these activities cannot simply be ignored. Charcoal production provides income for many people, particularly where alternative livelihoods are limited. But uncontrolled exploitation of indigenous woodland carries an enormous long-term environmental cost.

For me, conservation at Mpatamanga therefore became a long-term commitment: protect what remained, discourage illegal cutting, manage the land responsibly and give the indigenous woodland something increasingly precious — time.

It was never about planting or creating a forest from nothing.

It was about protecting an existing African ecosystem and allowing nature the opportunity to recover.

Twenty Years of Woodland Recovery

After approximately two decades of conservation, the scale of that recovery can now be measured.

A forest inventory undertaken by the Forestry Research Institute of Malawi (FRIM) estimated that the approximately 238-hectare Mpatamanga Wildlife Ranch supports more than 519,000 indigenous trees.

That figure represents far more than a number.

It represents years of protecting woodland from uncontrolled cutting, charcoal production and other pressures. It represents trees surviving long enough to mature, younger trees regenerating beneath established woodland and an ecosystem being given the opportunity to repair itself naturally.

The significance of the FRIM inventory is that it provides scientific evidence of what long-term protection can achieve.

The woodland contains a diverse range of indigenous species characteristic of the region. These trees form part of a much larger ecological system. Their roots stabilise soils. Their canopies provide shade and habitat. Their flowers, fruits and seeds support insects, birds and mammals. Fallen vegetation and deadwood provide further habitat and eventually return nutrients to the soil.

This is why conservation cannot simply be measured by counting trees.

A functioning woodland is a living network.

Protecting Habitat Means Protecting Wildlife

My approach at Mpatamanga has always recognised that wildlife conservation and habitat conservation cannot realistically be separated.

Wild animals cannot survive simply because legislation says they are protected.

They need somewhere to live.

Protect the woodland and you protect shelter, breeding areas, food sources and movement corridors. Protect the riverine environment and you support another complex network of aquatic and terrestrial life.

This philosophy was reflected when Mpatamanga received wildlife ranching authority from Malawi’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife in 2005.

But conservation on the ground is very different from conservation on paper.

There was no army of rangers and no vast international conservation budget behind Mpatamanga. Much of the work involved the practical realities of protecting land: maintaining a presence, conducting patrols, discouraging illegal logging, managing fire risks and observing changes in the environment year after year.

It required patience.

Perhaps more importantly, it required consistency.

National Recognition in

The Nation

Twenty years after that conservation journey began, the story received national recognition.

On 22 January 2026, Malawi’s The Nation newspaper published an environmental feature under the striking headline:

“Crocodile hunter keeps Shire riverbank greener.”

The article told another side of my story.

I had become known through my earlier work confronting some of Malawi’s dangerous crocodiles, experiences I subsequently documented in my book Memoirs of a Real Crocodile Hunter. But alongside that chapter of my life was another story — two decades spent conserving natural woodland along the Shire River.

The Nation feature highlighted the findings of the Forestry Research Institute of Malawi, reporting that Mpatamanga’s approximately 238 hectares of woodland support an estimated more than 519,000 indigenous trees.

The article also drew attention to the broader environmental importance of the forest, including its contribution to carbon storage, watershed protection and wildlife connectivity along the Shire River.

For me, the significance of the feature went beyond personal recognition.

It brought national attention to something I had witnessed quietly over many years: when indigenous woodland is consistently protected from charcoal burning, illegal logging and other destructive pressures, nature has an extraordinary capacity to recover.

As I told The Nation:

“Conservation is not always about grand announcements — sometimes it’s simply about refusing to give up ground.”

That principle captures much of what Mpatamanga has meant to me.

The Wider Environmental Value of Mpatamanga

The importance of conserving Miombo woodland extends far beyond the boundaries of a single property.

Healthy woodland stores carbon in trees, roots and soils. Protecting existing woodland therefore contributes to maintaining natural carbon stocks while avoiding some of the emissions associated with deforestation and land degradation.

Woodland also plays an important role in protecting soils and influencing how water moves through a landscape.

Vegetation shields soil from the direct force of heavy rainfall, while extensive root systems help bind that soil together. This can reduce erosion and help maintain the ecological integrity of the surrounding landscape.

These functions are particularly significant in an environment associated with the Shire River and Mpatamanga Gorge.

The woodland also provides habitat for countless organisms that are easily overlooked. Birds, insects, reptiles, mammals, fungi and microorganisms all participate in ecological processes that allow the landscape to function.

Biodiversity is therefore not an abstract environmental concept.

It is the accumulated result of thousands of relationships between living things.

Remove enough of those relationships and an ecosystem begins to weaken.

Protect them, and nature can demonstrate an extraordinary capacity for recovery.

Conservation Requires Time

One of the greatest lessons Mpatamanga has taught me is that conservation rarely produces instant results.

A mature indigenous tree cannot be replaced overnight.

A functioning woodland cannot recover according to a financial quarter, an election cycle or a development timetable.

Nature works on a different clock.

The transformation at Mpatamanga occurred because the woodland was protected over years and then decades.

Each season of natural regeneration built upon the previous one. Young trees survived. Mature trees continued producing seed. Habitats developed and the woodland became increasingly established.

After more than twenty years, the estimated 519,000 indigenous trees recorded by FRIM provide tangible evidence of what sustained protection has helped preserve.

There is also a broader lesson in the Mpatamanga story.

Conservation does not always require transforming a landscape through massive intervention. Sometimes one of the most powerful things we can do is protect what already exists, reduce the pressures destroying it and give nature enough time to recover.

That has been the philosophy behind my work at Mpatamanga.

More Than Half a Million Reasons Not to Give Up

When I first became involved with Mpatamanga, I could not have known what the woodland would look like two decades later.

There were no guarantees.

Conservation seldom offers them.

What existed instead was a belief that this landscape was worth protecting and that persistence, even on a relatively small piece of African woodland, could make a difference.

Today, the independent FRIM inventory provides a remarkable measure of what survived: more than half a million indigenous trees.

Behind that figure are two decades of patrols, difficult decisions, challenges, setbacks and persistence.

The national recognition from The Nation in January 2026 helped bring that story to a wider audience, but the real achievement remains where it has always been — on the ground at Mpatamanga.

In the trees that were not cut.

In the woodland that was allowed to regenerate.

In the habitat that remains.

And in an African landscape that was given the opportunity to recover.

Mpatamanga is evidence of what can happen when we give nature that chance.