Africa-Press – Mozambique. Mozambican authorities want greater involvement from the private sector in supporting job-creating initiatives in protected areas, following the example of the new Friends of Maputo National Park (PNAM) Club.
“With the creation of ‘Mungano’ [Friends of PNAM Club] we aim to increase viability, communication, and engagement with the private sector and others, contributing to the financial security and operations of the park in a range of key activities,” said Pejul Calenga, Director-General of Mozambique’s National Administration of Conservation Areas (ANAC).
This concerns the launch, on Thursday, of a financing platform aimed at raising investments, mainly from the private sector, to support community development and biodiversity conservation.
“We also intend to enable the private sector’s involvement in innovation, scaling nature-based solutions that benefit both the park and businesses,” said Pejul Calenga.
He also assured that it will allow the involvement of more actors to strengthen the strategic interest of this protected conservation area: “We need to discuss more often, we need to engage more people, and this is obviously what we are committed to doing.”
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The ANAC Director-General also considered this launch “an important milestone” as it seeks to build synergies to drive ecosystem preservation, community development, and job creation in that conservation area.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) inscribed Maputo National Park on 13 July last on the World Heritage List.
The inscription was adopted during the organisation’s 47th meeting held in Paris, with UNESCO highlighting that the park “includes terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems, and is home to nearly five thousand species.”
Mozambique has 14 important ecological regions, some of which are considered of global importance.
The National Network of Conservation Areas covers approximately 26% of Mozambican territory and comprises 19 national parks and reserves, 20 official hunting areas (coutadas), and a variety of other conservation categories, whose monitoring is guaranteed by these rangers.
