As the national tree it would be sad day for Malawi (and indeed the legacy of the late Honourable Hastings Banda) if it were to be lost forever.

The sap of the Mulanje Cedar has insecticide properties.  Therefore termites do not eat it and it does not decompose easily - a very valuable commodity in a tropical country.  The stumps of Mulanje Cedar that were logged some 80 years ago are still in evidence on the Mulanje plateau

The harvested wood travels far and wide from its source on Mount Mulanje. 
The beautifully crafted cedar boxes are often bought as gifts.  Personally I have seen such cedar boxes on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls and also at tourist lodges on the coast in Mozambique.  There are even reports of Mulanje Cedar planks travelling outside Africa to places such as India or Southeast Asia. 

However, the Mulanje Cedar is now severely threatened in the wild.  Over the past couple of years the standing volume of this tree has been reduced by half (approximately 400 hectares of mixed quality).  To make matters worse it has recently been found through DNA analysis that there are two species of cedar tree found on Mulanje and often they are mixed together resulting in an overestimate in the area of ‘Mulanje Cedar’. 
The real Mulanje Cedar is Widdringtonia whytei and it is only found on Mount Mulanje.  A more common sister tree is Widdringtonia nodiflora, which is widespread through southern Africa and also found on Mount Mulanje growing together with Widdringtonia whytei.  Therefore estimates of Mulanje Cedar forest cover have included both species in the past. 

They look similar.  The only difference is that W. whytei is taller and straighter than
W. nodiflora which is a more rounded, shorter tree.  This also has a huge impact on the conservation of the Mulanje cedar.  If you are a logger you are going to want the tallest and straightest planks, therefore you will select the Mulanje Cedar (W. whytei).