YOU’RE A KIRK’S CAECILIAN!
(SCOLECOMORPHUS KIRKII)
As you can see, as a Caecilian you are a legless amphibian that typically lives underground and in leaf litter. Most caecilian species are blind, using short tentacles to sense their environment. Your pointed nose and hard skull is well adapted for you to live underground, using your strong muscular body to move around.
After days of climbing Namuli’s granite faces, the 2014 scientific expedition to Mount Namuli came across your species, Kirk’s Caecilian, in an unlikely place—at the campground at the base of the mountain. This discovery marked the first recorded finding of a caecilian in the country of Mozambique, and at the time, the southernmost discovery of a caecilian in the world.
With a mouth full of sharp teeth to eat worms and termites, you depend on healthy forest soils for your survival.
You are in danger
With accelerating deforestation and increasing critical forest habitat destruction from an increasing population of farmers practicing slash-and-burn agriculture, the unique species of Mount Namuli like you are facing critical habitat loss.
This is where Legado steps in
By working with farmers towards effective community-based natural resource management, Legado is laying the path for empowered decision making, land use planning and a conservation agreement that protects high-altitude and riparian forest habitats, and the species that reside within them.
Through environmental education and local environmental leadership, we are building pride and a true understanding of the value of a standing forest and a healthy ecosystems’ implications for thriving futures on the mountain.
With conservation agriculture techniques, farmers are learning to conserve seeds and restore soil fertility so they can cultivate on the same area of land for longer, reducing their impact on the critical and unique forest habitats of Mount Namuli.
Your gift today will help save unique like Kirk’s Caecilian on Sky Islands like Mount Namul.