Inside Africa

Rising dramatically from the plains of southern Malawi, Mount Mulanje is a soaring granite massif known as the "Island in the Sky." It is home to a fragile and unique ecosystem and at its heart stands the Mulanje cedar (Widdringtonia whytei), a tree so rare it's found nowhere else on Earth. Once covering vast slopes of the mountain, the cedar is now critically endangered. Illegal logging, wildfires, and climate change have brought it to the brink, with only a handful of mature, seed-producing trees ever documented in recent years. Declared Malawi's national tree, the cedar has become a symbol of both loss and resilience. We explore the bold and deeply collaborative effort to bring this species back from the edge. At the core of this movement are local Malawians, young men and women who grow thousands of cedar seedlings in grassroots nurseries, carry them in woven baskets to high- altitude planting sites, and spend days traversing rugged trails to restore what's been lost. Their work is physically demanding and often overlooked, but essential to the project's success.