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Lusa - Business News - Mozambique: National park attracts 20,000 visitors in 2023 - interview
Maputo, April.15,2024 (Lusa) - Maputo National Park, a protected reserve 70 kilometres from the Mozambican capital, registered a record of around 20,000 visitors in 2023, its administrator told Lusa, justifying the growth with the recovery and investments underway. "It was the best year ever in terms of visitors. In terms of marine activities, we're still recovering. The best year in terms of the number of divers, the number of people who came to see marine mammals, was in 2017, but we're getting to the levels we were at before Covid-19," explained Miguel Gonçalves, in an interview with Lusa. With the emblematic giraffes and elephants that usually stroll along National Road 1 (N1), Maputo National Park benefits from its proximity to the South African cities of Durban and Johannesburg, combining "sea and land" and since 2018, with the inauguration of the Katembe bridge, facilitating the connection from the capital to the south, demand has continued to grow. "The number of tourists has started to increase, with the obvious exception of the Covid-19 period. It's been increasing by 10 to 15% every year for the last 15 years, with last year being the best ever, around 22% more than 2022," he said, emphasising that the strategic focus now is on "investing in tourism". "The appetite for visiting Maputo National Park is there. So now there's a big investment in improving our signposting, improving our communication," he added. Inside the park, there are campsites "with very good conditions", including hot water, running water and power, as well as three lodges for tourist accommodation, two of which are five-star. "We are also training our human resources, hiring more human resources so that we are prepared. We're also publicising the park more, talking about it more," he said. "These first three months of this year have been better than the first three months of last year," he added. Officially created on 7 December 2021, the Maputo National Park combines two historically established protected areas on land and at sea: the Maputo Special Reserve and the Ponta do Ouro Partial Marine Reserve. "So when we talk about fauna, we're not just talking about giraffes, buffaloes, elephants, wildebeest, zebras, hippos, crocodiles, various antelopes, more than 500 species of birds. But we're also talking about dolphins, whales, all the ichthyofauna, fish associated with coral reefs. We have to talk about sharks, sea turtles and all the associated flora," he emphasised. Covering an area of 1,718 square kilometres of land and sea, the Maputo National Park includes dune forests, grasslands, mangroves, coral reefs, beaches, rivers and lagoons, which make it "unique", like the logo itself: an elephant and a turtle. "On the same day and in the same place, on a lucky day, we can have a humpback whale on one side and an elephant on the other. The largest land mammal in the world and one of the largest marine mammals in the world," he said. There are currently 121 full-time staff working at the park, but that number easily exceeds 200 when you add in the support programmes for the resident communities and others. "For example, we have 42 colleagues working on the fence. At the moment, we have nearly 30 in the alien species removal programme, eight artisanal fishing monitors, 42 in turtle monitoring, and just as many in the cleaning and road opening activities," he said. The history of protection south of the Mozambican capital began in 1932 when it was a small hunting area where elephants were the main targets. In 1969, the importance of local biodiversity led to its classification as a Maputo Special Reserve. After the decline caused by the civil war that followed independence, boosted by the signing in 2006 of a memorandum of understanding between the government and the Peace Parks Foundation, which unified the management of the two components of land and marine protection, the park has continued to grow since 2010, with the reintroduction and translocation of species. "We're talking about two reserves in the same place, in the same system. So we moved forward to transform the two reserves into a single conservation area and raise the conservation status as high as possible within our reality to National Park," the administrator added. PVJ/ADB // ADB. Lusa Agency : LUSA Date : 2024-04-16 10:24:00
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