Gorongosa Park to Receive 500 Elephants



Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)

June 28, 2004
Posted to the web June 28, 2004

Maputo

The Gorongosa National Park, in the central Mozambican province of Sofala, is to receive 500 elephants from Botswana, during the second half of this year, as part of its restocking programme, reports Monday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias".

The animals are to be transported by road from Botswana.

Afonso Madope, national director for conservation areas, in the Tourism Ministry, told reporters that the programme is dependent on the outcome of negotiations with donors because the Mozambican government does not have the necessary money. All the work, including identifying the animals, anaesthetising them, and transporting them a distance of about 1,800 kilometres, will cost at least 2,000 US dollars per animal.

Madope said that the parties involved are working to have those animals transported to Gorongosa during this winter.

To study the future habitat for his country's elephants, a Botswana wild life technician visited Gorongosa late April.


Wild life in Gorongosa suffered a decline in numbers in the 1980s, due largely to massive poaching during the war of destabilisation. The Mozambican authorities had counted about 7,000 elephants in 1979, a number that dropped to only 111 in 2001, while the population of impalas dropped from about 10,000 in 1979 to only 38 in 2001.

In parallel with restocking, the restructuring of the Gorongosa Park also includes the rehabilitation of the infrastructures, for which the government is preparing to launch an international tender to select private investors to develop tourism in the park.

My figures might be slightly off, but Botswana's herd has grown to some 90,000 animals against a long term carrying capacity of only 7,000 or so. They are ripping apart the few forested areas in Botswana at a rapid rate. This is a good move in that light. Botswana would also like to increase trophy hunting, but some influential conservation organizations oppose that and have told the Govt that they will put an end to Botswana's lucrative ecotourism business if they go ahead with increased hunting. South Africa and Zimbabwe have the same problem.

Just what we need-a program to restock the land for the poachers.