Mozambique: National Parks received more than 1,400 animals from South Africa

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Mozambique: National Parks received more than 1,400 animals from South Africa

3:45 CAT | 20 Jun 2024

Minister of Land and Environment of Mozambique Ivete Maibaze speaks at the opening of the fifth Coordinating Council of the Ministry of Land and Environment, in Maputo city, on June 20, 2024. [Photo courtesy: Ministério da Terra e Ambiente]

Mozambican conservation areas have received more than 1,400 animals from South Africa in recent years, including elephants, lions and rhinos, the country’s Minister of Land and Environment, Ivete Maibaze, announced this Thursday (20-06).

“We note with satisfaction the faunal involvement of conservation areas with the translocation of 1,416 animals from neighbouring South Africa,” Minister Maibaze said in Maputo at the opening of the fifth Coordinating Council of the Ministry of Land and Environment.

Mozambique had also received hyenas, leopards and buffaloes from parks in South Africa under the animal translocation scheme, she said.

“Of the conservation areas that received animals, the highlight goes to the Zinave National Park, in the province of Inhambane, district of Mabote, which became the only national park in our country to house all of the terrestrial ‘big five’, namely elephant, lion, leopard, hippopotamus and rhinoceros,” Maibaze highlighted.

“This exercise required the sector to adopt measures to guarantee the integrity of the animals and the entire natural heritage. To assure this, we established the centre for coordinating operations against poaching in Mabote district and prioritised telemetric monitoring of the movement of animals through 40 necklaces,” she added.

The minister said in the same intervention that 21 people involved in poaching in Mozambique were recently handed “exemplary sentences” as part of efforts to combat the practice.

According to the Ministry of Land and Environment, Mozambique has 12 national parks and protected areas, with 5,500 species of flora and 4,271 species of terrestrial wildlife.

Source: Lusa