Conservation secured after expedition discovers new
species of snake, butterfly and chameleon in untouched African landscapeThe unique lost rain
forest of Mount Mabu is to be given protection from exploitation, following a new expedition to the remote area revealed a host of new species.The existence of the pristine forest in northern Mozambique was revealed by the Observer last year, and was originally discovered with the help of
Google Earth. It is now thought to be the largest such forest in southern Africa.At a meeting this week in the capital Maputo, government ministers agreed to put conservation measures in place before any commercial logging occurs there after meeting representatives from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the Mulanje Mountain Conservation Trust (MMCT), and numerous other groups involved in the project."The three messages we conveyed were that there is rich biodiversity in Mozambique, that butterflies and botany can be as important as mammals, and that conservation policy should take into consideration areas such as these mountains or the coastal forests, that do not easily fit into the usual category of national park," said Kew's Jonathan Timberlake. The media coverage had clinched the participation of the government, added Paul Smith, head of the Millennium Seed Bank project at Kew.Julian Bayliss of MMCT, who first identified Mount Mabu as an area of possible exploration using satellite imagery on Google Earth said: "As scientists it is incredibly exciting to go into a previously unexplored area and discover new species of butterfly, snake and chameleon, but our aim was always to secure pledges of conservation towards the protection of these sites."The first full-scale expedition to Mabu last October uncovered three new species of butterfly, a new species of bush viper, a number of rare birds and potentially unrecorded plants. "These expeditions into the area are absolutely essential to securing conservation measures," said Smith. "Unl ...
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