Ntchisi Forest

Ntchisi Forest Reserve covers approximately 75 sq km and is surrounded on all sides by rolling hills covered by subsistence farming and dotted with traditional villages. It is an untouched paradise, undiscovered by mass tourism. Before it became a protected area, the forest was used as a refuge by the local Chewa tribe against attacks by the warring Ngonis in the 19th Century. Because the forest proved so vital as a shelter for people, it largely escaped the deforestation for firewood that has unfortunately decimated so much of Africa’s indigenous woodlands. It later became a designated Forest Reserve. Ntchisi Forest Reserve contains some of the last remaining indigenous rainforest in Malawi. Some trees tower thirty metres overhead while lianas and strangler figs compete for the sunlight.