AIRCRAFT BY WILDLIFE SMUGGLERS

The use of aircraft by smugglers in wildlife products is a threat, not only to biodiversity, but also to airport security, declared Mozambican Transport Minister Carlos Mesquita on Wednesday. Citing data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Mesquita said that in 2016, in airports across the world, around 16,000 live animals were seized from traffickers, as well as over 5,300 kilos of ivory and rhinoceros horns.

Speaking in Maputo on the occasion of IATA day, the minister said this had become a serious challenge for aviation, posing safety problems for flights, apart from the decimation of endangered wild life.The figures from IATA, he added, greatly concern the Mozambican government and he called for redoubled effort to stop the use of aircraft for the trafficking in wildlife and wildlife products. Mesquita also called for the establishment of strategic partnerships between air companies in order to reduce operational costs and create conditions for the opening of new markets by African companies.

As for the liberalisation of Mozambican air space, Mesquita said this should be accompanied by investments in Mozambican air companies so that they can face an increasingly competitive environment. But he believed that the entry of new operators in the Mozambican domestic market will bring benefits for the mobility of people and goods and will contribute to the development of tourism.Mesquita added that the Mozambican government has been taking measures to ensure that the country can reach the norms and standards of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). These efforts bore fruit in May this year, when the European Union removed Mozambican air companies from the list of airlines not allowed to fly in European air space.