Mozambique: Ian Khama to address International Tourism Conference

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Mozambique: Ian Khama to address International Tourism Conference

10:39 CAT | 07 Jun 2018

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Botswana’s former President Ian Khama has arrived in the Mozambican capital Maputo, where he will be the keynote speaker at the International Conference on Nature-Based Tourism.

Khama will speak of his government’s experience in promoting tourism in conservation areas, protecting wildlife through more vigorous fighting poaching and restoration of the animal population in conservation areas, APA can report on Wednesday.

The three-day ITC is an annual global event, is taking place for the first time in Mozambique; begins on Thursday and ends on Saturday.

The General Director of Mozambique’s National Administration of Conservation Areas, ANC Mateus Mutemba, told APA in an interview on Wednesday that this was one of the legacies of the presidency of Ian Khama in Botswana in the last ten years before he voluntarily stepped down on 31 March of this year.

“This event is one of the largest wildlife conservation conferences in the world, and it aims to promote and debate the challenges of tourism based on biodiversity conservation in the world’s conservation areas, as well as sharing with the world the rich natural heritage that Mozambique possesses in conservation areas.

“We also want to use the conference’s opportunity to launch the rebirth of Conservation Areas as it is our intention to promote tourism investments and Public-Private Partnerships in the Mozambican Conservation Areas”, Mutemba told APA in the interview.

Mutemba said the former Botswana leader’s presence in Mozambique is of paramount importance to help in luring investors.

Botswana has five national conservation areas and eight other smaller areas and a cross-border area that includes reserves in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

In its conservation areas, Botswana has one of the few populations of African wild dogs at risk of extinction and one of the largest concentrations of African elephants on the planet.

The famous Chobe National Park has four ecosystems with the highest concentration of wildlife throughout Africa. And tourism in these conservation areas generates revenues valued at more than $1.8 billion per year for the Botswana government.

Source: APA