Mount Selinda

Last updated August 03, 2024

Mount Selinda, at an altitude of 1,100 metres, is a village and mission station in the province of Manicaland in the eastern mountains of Zimbabwe. Located close to the Mozambique border, it lies in an area of outstanding natural beauty. Mount Selinda sits on an east-facing slope, on the very edge of the Chirinda Forest Botanical Reserve – the southernmost tropical rainforest in Africa.

Name

For centuries, the local Ndau people have called the Mount Selinda area "Chirinda", meaning "lookout" or "vantage point", and certainly the etymology of this name becomes abundantly clear when standing on the western slopes of Mount Selinda, with sweeping views for miles around. The Shangani people to the south pronounced Chirinda as "Silinda" and the name "Selinda" is clearly an English corruption of the Shangani word. The first mention of the name "Mount Selinda" appears to have been in the late nineteenth century when the land in the area was claimed by European settlers. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions approached Cecil John Rhodes of the British South Africa Company, seeking land on which to establish their mission. Rhodes himself granted them land in the Chirinda area, much of the land situated on an already-existing farm called Mount Selinda. Although there are no documents in the Deeds Office reflecting it, it would appear that a Mr. Steyn occupied the farm at the time and sold it to the mission for a sum of £300 (three hundred pounds). In 1892 a Mr Wilder, Mr Bunker and Mr Thompson commenced the establishment of the Mount Silinda Mission (historically the name Silinda was adopted by the mission and the name Selinda was the name of the farm). But it was not until 1901 that the American Board Mission finally obtained legal possession of the farm Mount Selinda under Pioneer Title. ^[1]

Geography

Mount Selinda lies at the southern end of a mountain range which separates Zimbabwe from neighbouring Mozambique. This range, hundreds of kilometres long, runs in a north–south direction, with the Nyanga mountains lying at the northern extremity. Mount Selinda itself consists of two large, densely forested hills which rise up from the mountain plateau, with the two hills possessing a gentle but distinct saddle between them. No other high ground stands between Mount Selinda and the Indian Ocean some 400 kilometres away – a major factor influencing Mount Selinda's wet climate. To the north east of Chirinda Forest lies the Ngungunyana Forest and eucalyptus plantation C.^[2] To the east of Mount Selinda the land descends gradually into Mozambique, while to the west of Mount Selinda the geography changes suddenly and dramatically. After some 30 km the mountain range plunges down to the flat, arid lowlands of the Sabi River Valley where, in searing summer temperatures of 40 °C and higher, heat-tolerant baobab, acacia and mopane trees abound.

Only one tarred road, single track, potholed, and in a poor state of repair, penetrates the area, the other tarred roads having long since crumbled away. Numerous earth roads provide access from all directions.

Climate

The climate of Mount Selinda is humid subtropical, being greatly influenced by warm, moist air originating from the Indian Ocean, moving west across Mozambique and condensing as it rises up into the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe. As a result of this year-round moisture, Mount Selinda is evergreen and does not experience the arid winters found in the rest of southern Africa. Mount Selinda's weather is also influenced by its proximity to Chirinda Forest – the forest acting as a sponge and holding vast quantities of moisture. Summers are warm and humid and winters are cool and humid. Temperatures rarely rise beyond 30 degrees Celsius in summer and light frost can occur in the surrounding low-lying areas in winter. Whilst the climate of Mount Selinda can be precisely and accurately described, actual available weather records for Mount Selinda are not comprehensive. From available information however, the following data may be gleaned.

Rainfall

Historical records beginning in 1911 (with a break during the 1970s) reveal an average yearly rainfall of almost 1,500 millimetres. The highest annual rainfall recorded during this period was 3,699 millimetres in a twelve-month period from 1917 to 1918, and the lowest rainfall recorded was 757 millimetres during a twelve-month period from 1940 to 1941. It must be emphasised that these are only rainfall figures and as such they do not include the vast quantities of precipitation which routinely descend upon Mount Selinda in the form of mist, fog, low cloud and heavy night-time dew. ^[3]

Whilst a rain gauge (unfortunately sited in the lee of forest trees) is in use in the Chirinda Forest Campsite, and whilst there is a basic meteorological unit at the Mount Selinda High School, it is not clear whether any accurate weather data has been documented or made available to the public in Mount Selinda in more recent years.^[4]

A serious drought that affected the whole of Zimbabwe, including Mount Selinda, from 2013 finally ended with the onset of the rainy season at the end of 2016.

Geology

Phyllitic mudstones (phyllite being a fine-grained metamorphic rock) and fine-grained to medium-grained feldspathic sandstones lie atop an igneous base of dolerites, and it is from these dolerites that much of the soils in the area are formed. These soils are a rich red-brown, fine-grained, sandy clay which, in turn, are under-laid by ferralithic clay. The soils of the Mount Selinda area are typically deep and fertile.

Flora and fauna

The Mount Selinda area is home to a staggering array of indigenous African flora, fungi, birds, butterflies, insects and reptiles. This is mainly due to its position adjoining the Chirinda Forest Botanical Reserve which is protected by law. Among the hundreds of indigenous trees found in Mount Selinda are Red mahogany, Brown mahogany, Natal mahogany, Albizia, Forest Newtonia ( Newtonia buchananii ), Big Leaf, White stinkwood, Chirinda stinkwood, Ironwood and colossal specimens of strangling figs. The largest Red Mahogany tree in southern Africa, a 1,000- to 2,000-year-old leviathan with a trunk diameter of some 6 metres stands at Mount Selinda. Other smaller flora include thousands of specimens of the yucca-like Dracaena fragrans , numerous ferns, creepers, vines, epiphytes, montbretia, orchids and flame lilies. Due to its proximity to the botanical reserve, Mount Selinda boasts a dazzling array of bird life, with Trumpeter hornbills, Livingstone's turaco, African pygmy kingfishers, Firefinches, Sunbirds, African green pigeons, Owls, Nightjars, Narina Trogon, Eagles and Bee-eaters. The sheer variety and brilliant colours of butterflies in the area is also noteworthy. Samango monkeys are often seen in the area. The reptile population consists of, amongst others, pythons, cobras, vipers, mambas, adders, chameleons, geckos, skinks and lizards. The endemic chameleon Marshall's leaf chameleon, Rhampholeon marshalli, is found within the forest and at the forest margin and it is scattered sparsely in suitable forest habitat throughout the mountains of the Eastern Highlands.

Agriculture

Avocadoes, tea, bananas, sweet potatoes, taro, citrus, pineapples, sugar cane, coffee, macadamia nuts and commercial timbers (eucalyptus, wattle and pine) are grown in the area. Dairy farming has declined in recent years.

Facilities

Formal education facilities are provided by the Mount Selinda Primary School, Mount Selinda Secondary School and the School of Nursing at the Mount Selinda Hospital. Two kilometres to the west of Mount Selinda lies the small township of Chako, which is the nearest commercial centre comprising a post office, basic grocery shops, general dealers, a small market, butcher shops, carpenters and liquor outlets. In the Chirinda Forest Nature Reserve there is tourist accommodation in the form of three thatched, serviced chalets and a camping site. The single-track, tar road from the town of Chipinge to the north ends at Mount Selinda, with an earth road continuing eight kilometres to the Mount Selinda border post, which has immigration and customs facilities for those wishing to enter and exit Mozambique.

Mission history

In 1919 Emory Alvord, arrived at the Mount Selinda Mission and taught western farming methods to the local population. He also established the Nyanyadzi irrigation scheme in Zimbabwe's hot, lowland area. The United Church of Christ in Zimbabwe (UCCZ) also facilitated the establishment of the Nyanyadzi irrigation scheme.

The mission church was established and staffed by the American Board Mission^[5] and it had satellite churches at Beacon Hill, Emerald Hill and Muzite. The Mount Selinda Institute is a sister institution to the Chikore Mission ( 20°26′13″S32°29′52″E / 20.43694°S 32.49778°E / -20.43694; 32.49778 , approximately 30 km north west of Mount Selinda)

The institute has historical monuments like the 'catapilla' earth mover known by the locals as 'Gandapasi', the brick moulding machine and the first building constructed from bricks and tiles in the Melsetter district of Manicaland.

Today the Mission Station comprises a church, a primary school, a secondary school with boarding facilities, a farm, a grinding mill and the Willis F. Pierce Memorial Hospital which is also known as Mount Selinda Hospital. The boarding school accommodates both boys and girls. The Mission Hospital trains midwives and primary care nurses. In its grounds is situated the Daisy Dube Orphanage.

20°27′S32°43′E / 20.450°S 32.717°E / -20.450; 32.717

Related Research Articles

Manicaland is a province in eastern Zimbabwe. After Harare Province, it is the country's second-most populous province, with a population of 2.037 million, as of the 2022 census. After Harare and Bulawayo provinces, Manicaland is Zimbabwe's third-most densely populated province. Manicaland was one of five original provinces established in Southern Rhodesia in the early colonial period. The province endowed with country's major tourist attractions, the likes of Mutarazi Falls, Nyanga National Park and Zimbabwe's top three highest peaks. The province is divided into ten administrative subdivisions of seven rural districts and three towns/councils, including the provincial capital, Mutare. The name Manicaland is derived from one of the province's largest ethnic groups, the Manyika, who originate from the area north of the Manicaland province and as well as western Mozambique, who speak a distinct language called ChiManyika in Shona.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Masvingo Province</span> Province in Masvingo, Zimbabwe

Masvingo, previously named Victoria, is a province in southeastern Zimbabwe. It has a population of 1.638 million as of the 2022 census, ranking fifth out of Zimbabwe's ten provinces. Established by the British South Africa Company, it was one of the five original provinces of Southern Rhodesia. In 1982, two years after Zimbabwean independence, it was renamed Masvingo Province. The province is divided into seven districts, including Masvingo District, which contains the provincial capital Masvingo City.

The Eastern Highlands, also known as the Manica Highlands, is a mountain range on the border of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The Eastern Highlands extend north and south for about 300 kilometres (190 mi) through Zimbabwe's Manicaland Province and Mozambique's Manica Province.

The Honde Valley extends from the eastern border of Zimbabwe into Mozambique. The valley is part of the Eastern Highlands. The valley is about 130 kilometres from Mutare, or 110 kilometres from Nyanga. The Nyanga Mountains and the Nyanga National Park form the western boundary of the valley.

Chipinge District is a district in Manicaland Province of eastern Zimbabwe. The administrative headquarters is Chipinge.

The Ndau are a Shona ethnic group which inhabits the areas in eastern Zimbabwe. The name "Ndau" means Land. Just like the Manyika people in northern Manicaland, their name Manyika also meaning "Owners of the Land", the name Ndau means Land. E.g "Ndau yedu" meaning "our land" When the Ngoni observed this, they called them the Ndau people, the name itself meaning the land, the place or the country in their language. A traditional outsider suggestion is that the name is derived from the Nguni words "Amading'indawo" which means "those looking for a place" as this is what the Gaza Nguni called them and the name then evolved to Ndau. However, they are described in detail to have already been occupying parts of Zimbabwe and Mozambique in 1500s by the Portuguese missionary Joao dos Santos. The five largest Ndau groups are the Magova; the Mashanga; the Vatomboti, the Madanda and the Teve. Ancient Ndau People met with the Khoi/San during the first trade with the Arabs at Mapungumbwe and its attributed to the Kalanga people not Ndau. They traded with Arabs with “Mpalu” “Njeti” and “Vukotlo’’ these are the red, white and blue coloured cloths together with golden beads. Ndau people traded traditional herbs, spiritual powers, animal skins and bones.

Cashel is a village in Chimanimani District of Manicaland Province, Zimbabwe. It is located near the Mozambique border, just north of the Chimanimani Mountains. Forestry, bananas, wheat, and various cash crops are grown in the area. It was originally called Penkridge but was changed to Cashel in 1957. It was named after Lt. Col. E. Cashel, a former member of the British South Africa Police and the Rhodesian Volunteers, who retired to this area after World War I. The Cashel valley is well known for radio and television commercials, which sought to extol the quality of its peas, beans and other agricultural products.

The Bvumba Mountains or Vumba Mountains straddle the Zimbabwe–Mozambique border, and lie some 10 km southeast of the city of Mutare. The Bvumba rise to Castle Beacon at 1,911 metres, and are, together with the Chimanimani Mountains to the south and Nyanga Mountains to the north, part of the Eastern Highlands of the Manicaland and adjacent Manica provinces. They are referred to as the "Mountains of the Mist", as so often the early morning starts with a mist which clears by mid-morning. Although lying mostly within Zimbabwe, the mountains extend north-eastward to Mount Vumba in Mozambique. They are capped by cool, green hills which shelter country hotels, a casino and golf course at the Leopard Rock Hotel and a Botanical Garden with one of the best views in Africa. The mountains are also known for their coffee plantations.

The Afromontane regions are subregions of the Afrotropical realm, one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms, covering the plant and animal species found in the mountains of Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula. The Afromontane regions of Africa are discontinuous, separated from each other by lower-lying areas, and are sometimes referred to as the Afromontane archipelago, as their distribution is analogous to a series of sky islands.

Hyperolius swynnertoni is a species of frog in the family Hyperoliidae. It is found in the southern portion of the eastern Zimbabwe uplands and adjacent Mozambique. It is also known as the Swynnerton's reed frog, with the subspecies "broadleyi" as the Broadley's tree frog or Broadley's forest treefrog.

The Chirinda apalis is a species of passerine bird belonging to the family Cisticolidae. This species is endemic to the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest and subtropical or tropical moist montane forest.

The red bush squirrel or red-bellied coast squirrel is a species of rodent in the family Sciuridae, which is found in bush and forest along the eastern seaboard of Africa. It is closely related to P. lucifer, P. vexillarius and P. (p.) vincenti.

Chimanimani, originally known as Melsetter, is a town in Zimbabwe.

Nyanga District is located in Manicaland Province of Zimbabwe.

Marshall's pygmy chameleon, also called Marshall's leaf chameleon, Marshall's dwarf chameleon, or Marshall's stumptail chameleon, is a species of chameleon found in the forests of Zimbabwe and Mozambique in Africa. It grows from 3.5 to 7.5 cm and feeds on insects. When standing still, it resembles a leaf on a branch.

The Chimanimani Mountains are a mountain range on the border of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The mountains are in the southern portion of the Eastern Highlands, or Manica Highlands, a belt of highlands that extend north and south along the international border, between the Zambezi and Save rivers.

Big Tree is the tallest indigenous tree in Zimbabwe, and a declared National Monument. The tree is 65 metres tall and 4.5 metres wide. Its age is approximately 1,000 years. The tree is located in the centre of Chirinda Forest in southeast Zimbabwe at the southernmost part of the country's Eastern Highlands. Big Tree is a Khaya anthotheca or Nyasa redwood tree. In December 1986, it reached 65 metres tall and 5.25 metres wide. The trunk is heavily buttressed at the base, which complicates measurement.

The 950 hectares Chirinda Forest Botanical Reserve is situated on the slopes of Mount Selinda, 30 km south of Chipinge, in the Chipinge Highlands of Manicaland, Zimbabwe, and is administered by the Forestry Commission. The reserve is situated at between 900 and 1,200 m in altitude, and receives some 1,370 mm (54 in) to 1,466 mm (57.7 in) of annual rainfall. 606 hectares of its higher levels, above 1,076 m (3,530 ft), is covered by moist evergreen forest, specifically Zanzibar-Inhambane transitional rain forest, of which it represents the southernmost occurrence. The headwaters of three streams, namely the Zona, Chinyika and Musangazi, drain the two broad highlands which it encloses. The boundaries of the reserve are not strictly enforced, so that cattle grazing and plant harvesting are ongoing. The reserve is surrounded by communal settlements, commercial timber plantations and small-scale commercial farming units. The naturalist Charles Swynnerton was appointed manager of the nearby Gungunyana farm in 1900, and a number of plant, bird and insect names commemorate his collecting activities of the next two decades. Chirinda means "lookout" or "vantage point" in the chiNdau language, or perhaps "place of refuge".

The Moribane Forest Reserve which was proclaimed in 1957, is a natural forest in the buffer zone of the 640 km² Chimanimani National Reserve, and is situated 24 km north of Dombé, in Sussundenga District of central Mozambique. The mid- to low-elevation tropical rain forest covers hilly country, from 400 to 550 metres in elevation, on the eastern verges of the largest southern African forest of this type, altogether 820 km² in extent. It can be reached using public transport from Sussundenga.

References

↑ Chirinda Forest, A Visitor's Guide, by Jonathan Timberlake.
↑ "Eastern Zimbabwe montane forest-grassland mosaic". Terrestrial Ecoregions. World Wildlife Fund.
↑ Chirinda Forest, A Visitor's Guide, by Jonathan Timberlake
↑ Chirinda Forest A Visitors Guide, by Jonathan Timberlake and Phil Shaw
↑ "Home". uccz.org.

Eastern Higlands

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Chirinda Forest, A Visitor's Guide, by Jonathan Timberlake.

[2] "Eastern Zimbabwe montane forest-grassland mosaic". Terrestrial Ecoregions. World Wildlife Fund.

[3] Chirinda Forest, A Visitor's Guide, by Jonathan Timberlake

[4] Chirinda Forest A Visitors Guide, by Jonathan Timberlake and Phil Shaw

[5] "Home". uccz.org.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]