Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi declared on Thursday night that he would like to sign the definitive peace agreement with the rebel movement Renamo in the central district of Gorongosa.
Speaking in Maputo at a gala dinner at the end of the first day of an International Conference on Nature-based Tourism, Nyusi said “one of my dreams was to sign the peace agreement in Gorongosa”.
The current coordinator of Renamo, Ossufo Momade, is living in a Renamo military base in Gorongosa – the same base where the late Renamo leader, Afonso Dhlakama, died of diabetes on 3 May. The Renamo base is not far from the jewel in Mozambique’s conservation crown, the Gorongosa National Park.
Nyusi hoped that Gorongosa could also be transformed into “a park for debates”, and stressed that, in addition to peace with Renamo, “we must also have social peace”.
The President declared that Mozambicans need nature, and so the country’s conservation areas must be properly maintained and conserved. To this end, he witnessed four agreements, signed by the Minister of Land, Environment and Rural Development, Celso Correia, under which 550 million US dollars will be made available for conservation projects.
The largest sum, 500 million dollars comes from the Farquhar Group, represented by its managing director, Paul Milton. Much of this money is intended to build a scientific centre in the southern province of Inhambane for the protection of dugongs. Mozambique has one of the largest surviving populations in the world of this endangered marine mammal.
“One of the government’s concerns has been to protect dugongs, a species which needs our attention, if it is not to go extinct”, said Correia.
This grant will also go towards the fight against poaching in the Limpopo National Park, in the neighbouring province of Gaza, and financing tourist accommodation with 1,500 beds.
The other 50 million dollars takes the form of a line of credit from the country’s largest commercial bank, the Millennium-BIM (International Bank of Mozambique). Mozambican businesses wishing to invest in nature-based tourism may apply for funds from this line of credit, and the interest rates “will be negotiated”, said Correia.
The Minister stressed the government’s interest in “involving the Mozambican private sector in these projects so that it can accompany the foreign investment. This is a line of credit that will be available to all those interested as from Friday”.
An agreement which Correia signed with Werner Myburgh, director of the South Africa-based Peace Parks Foundation, envisaged the construction, within the next year of a conference centre inside one of Mozambique’s conservation areas.
Since Correia said it would be built around 50 kilometres from Maputo in an area “with elephants and beaches”, he was clearly thinking of the Maputo Special Reserve which lies on the road from the Mozambican capital to the South African province of Kwazulu-Natal.
The final agreement, with the United States Carr Foundation, which co-manages the Gorongosa National Park, envisaged an increase of more than 50 per cent in the Foundation’s social responsibility work in the communities in the vicinity of the park.
Source: AIM
