Africa-Press – Mozambique. The Zinave National Park in southern Mozambique has received eight more rhinos as part of plans to rehabilitate the area, supported by the South African Peace Parks Foundation.
“These are rare and endangered animals, so it is extremely important to strengthen security,” Bernard van Lente, project manager of the Peace Parks foundation, explained to the media during the arrival of the animals.
In total, Zinave National Park has received 27 rhinos in the past two months, after almost 40 years without the animals in the area, under the initiative supported by Peace Parks, which has invested around $4.6 million (almost five million euros) to transport the animals and strengthen security in the protection area.
“We have trained 54 men who are now distributed throughout the park to reinforce security and we have requested a helicopter to reinforce the patrol work, which is on site day and night,” stressed Bernard van Lente.
The organisation, founded in 1997 by, among others, then South African president Nelson Mandela, defends the reintroduction of rhinos in Zinave as an important milestone in the region to protect the species, which has been in the sights of hunters.
According to the entity, in the last decade, more than 8,000 black and white rhinos (more than a third of the world’s remaining population) have been killed by poaching in southern Africa.
Mozambique’s National Administration of Conservation Areas (ANAC) and Peace Parks partnered and began restoration of the park in 2016.
Zinave National Park, located in Inhambane province, southern Mozambique, covers 408,000 hectares and was decimated after Mozambique’s 16-year civil war.
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