New research from the University of Johannesburg (UJ) shows that two unique rural villages in Limpopo province have built one of South Africa’s most effective community-led conservation systems. These rural people are keeping their traditional mopane and marula trees standing and productive, while similar woodlands elsewhere in southern Africa are stripped bare by unregulated harvesting.
For families in these villages, losing their food sources from the trees is not an option. As Prof Ndidzulafhi Innocent Sinthumule puts it: “Losing access to the harvest represents a critical blow to food security and income for rural people. Practically, it means losing a key, free source of nutrition, and essential cash for school fees and uniforms. The harvest is a traditional food security safety net when food is scarce. For rural women, it is a primary income opportunity”.
Prof Sinthumule is a researcher in the UJ Department of Geography, Environmental Management and Energy Studies, within the Faculty of Science.
The study, led by Professor Sinthumule, focuses on Muyexe and Matiyane, two villages on the eastern border of the Kruger National Park.
Local chiefs oversee land use because residents depend heavily on it for daily livelihoods. Unemployment levels are between 60% and 80% in Matiyane and about 60.4% in Muyexe, according to 2012 to 2013 information.
The harvesting, and the protecting, is done overwhelmingly by women, most of whom are over 50 years old.
In Muyexe, residents harvest mopane worms by hand from the trees and the ground. They wait for the worms to crawl down to the ground rather than climbing trees.
One woman in the study described how they harvest. Cutting branches off mopane trees is simply not allowed, she said, and there is no reason to do it, because the leaves and stems of the shrubs already carry more than enough worms.
At Matiyane, the rule is that marula fruits are only harvested after they have fallen to the ground.
These rules hold because they are anchored in something older than any municipal by-law. Even a marula in someone’s back yard may not be cut.
“Cutting any tree species that bear fruits is considered a taboo because these trees, particularly the Marula, are vital for food security, economic livelihood, and cultural survival. The trees ensure the villagers’ survival during droughts,” Sinthumule says.
The taboo, he adds, “likely represents centuries of ancestral wisdom passed down through generations. It predates colonial arrival and represents a ‘long-term planning’ approach. Elders teach younger generations to manage trees for future beneficiaries rather than immediate gain”.
In Muyexe, outsiders who want to harvest mopane worms must pay a permit fee and follow rules set by the tribal council and local chiefs. Enforcement is conducted by the local community and tribal council members. Anyone harvesting without paying or before permission faces confiscation of the harvest and a fine.
However, in the past five years no fine violations have been recorded in Muyexe.
“The Muyexe system in South Africa works. Similar areas in Namibia and Zimbabwe struggle,” adds Sinthumule. “Muyexe effectively utilizes Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) through strict, culturally rooted local rules and enforced taboos. They don’t rely solely on weak state law enforcement”.
Meanwhile, there is a larger threat towards the villagers’ communal food sources.
“The single biggest risk to the mopane worm system is from surging, cross-border commercial demand. This drives the ecological collapse of the resource due to premature and over-harvesting. That in turn leads to permanent loss of local livelihoods and nutritional security”, he adds.
Sinthumule is urging policymakers to put strict no-harvest periods in place at the start of the season and to create a formal registration system giving local, small-scale harvesters priority access to communal forests.
“The harvesting of mopane worms and marula fruits is far more than a seasonal activity. It is a critical intersection of culture, nutrition, and economics in rural southern Africa”, Sinthumule concludes.
Research article:
The Role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Managing the Collection of Non-Timber Forest Products in Limpopo, South Africa: A Community-Based Resource Governance Approach (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-025-00641-6)
