A new marine conservation area is in the process of being created in the districts of Memba and Mossuril, in the northern province of Nampula, and the initiative is expected to materialize in 2027.

The proposal is the result of the project "Building a Blue Future for Ecosystems and People on the East African Coast", an initiative of several intuitions working to conserve biodiversity.

Speaking on Friday, on the second day of the Marine Biodiversity conference which runs until August 2 in Maputo, the director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Marine Program in Mozambique (WCS), Hugo Costa, said, quoted by AIM, that there is work going on with the government to materialize this objective.

"WCS has been working with the Mozambican government. First, we carried out a technical exercise with the Mozambique Oceanographic Institute to establish scenarios for expanding the network of marine conservation areas, combined with the national and international targets to which Mozambique has committed itself," he said, adding that "we are currently supporting the government in developing the strategy and action plan to make this scenario a reality."

The area in question was identified to expand the networks of marine conservation areas, mainly because it is rich in corals, especially as it is home to one of the most important coral reef areas in the western Indian Ocean.

These are reefs with greater resilience, i.e. more adapted to the phenomenon of climate change to which the country is hostage, as well as being an extremely important area for seagrass and mangroves that guarantee coastal security.

"In total, there are around 200 kilometers of coastline that have the potential to be categorized as between 1,000 and 7,000 square kilometers of conservation area, of sustainable use that allows communities to continue fishing through the implementation of community fishing areas," he said.

He explained that this is a five-year project (from 2022 to 2027), which is in the second phase of its implementation.

"We've finished the first year with the baseline studies, from an ecological and socio-economic point of view. We're entering the second phase, which is to process all this information and begin the process of interacting with the local communities, with the local district, provincial and national authorities," he said.

According to the timetable, the proposal to create the conservation areas is expected to be prepared by mid-2025 and 2026, with all this information already available. 1TP5We hope that by the end of the project, in May 2027, this area will be created," he said.

The project has the support of the Institute of Oceanography of Mozambique (InOM), the Foundation for the Conservation of Biodiversity (BIOFUND), People to People Development Aid ADPP, ProAzul, the Department of Biological Sciences of the Eduardo Mondlane University (DCB-UEM) and the Environment Association (AMA), and was launched in August 2022 in Maputo.