Tourist potential

Mozambique’s tourism potential should be considered an advantage in the fight against poverty, said the World Bank (WB) director in Mozambique Mark Lundell.“In Africa, tourism is growing very strongly and has been a strong source of job creation,” said Lundell during the opening of the international conference on Nature-Based Tourism, which will take place in Maputo on Thursday and organised by The Mozambican government and the Global Wildlife Program, an international partnership led by the World Bank.The commitment to protect endangered species, said the World Bank director, should be a commitment made by everybody, especially in Africa.“Mozambique has been an example in the struggle for conservation,” noted Lundell, adding that Mozambican rural communities are increasingly aware of the importance of biodiversity.“I hope this conference will produce new ideas for the conservation of biodiversity and, consequently, for the development of tourism,” he concluded, expressing that the World Bank was open to continuing to support Mozambique in the fight for nature conservation.Conservation areas in Mozambique cover 25% of the country’s territory.The International Conference on Nature-Based Tourism will bring together academics and experts from 25 countries to discuss biodiversity conservation around the world, with a special focus on the host country.The meeting, which is due to end on Saturday, is rotated between member countries of the Global Wildlife Program and, before Mozambique, was hosted by India and Kenya.

.“It’s all in the pipeline”

Ethiopian Airlines is set to become the second foreign-owned company to operate regular domestic passenger flights in Mozambique, the chairman of the Civil Aviation Institute of Mozambique (IACM) told Lusa yesterday.

“The company has already submitted all the necessary documents and we believe it will be flying in the country within two months,” João de Abreu explained.

At present, Ethiopian Airlines is in the third of five stages required to obtain operator’s certificate to fly between provincial capitals and Maputo in the 2,000-km long country.

“The third stage consists of a thorough evaluation of all the manuals and documents that are required. This is the most important phase, but this is a large and experienced company, so the process will be much faster,” he added.

The next two phases consist of demonstrating the company’s ability to comply with safety procedures on an experimental flight and the formal delivery of the air certificate, authorising the company to fly in Mozambique.“It’s all in the pipeline,” Abreu said.

In addition to Ethiopian Airlines, the public company CFM – Transportes e Trabalhos Aéreos (belonging to Mozambique Ports and Railways) is in the process of obtaining the certificate, and is now in the second phase, which consists of the submission of operation and quality manuals as well as the delivery of the maintenance programme.“They are still in the internal phase of equipment acquisition. It is not enough to want to fly, you also have to fulfil the necessary conditions,” Abreu said.Ethiopian Airlines will join Fastjet, which in November 2017 became the first foreign-owned company to make regular domestic passenger flights in Mozambique.Until then, only the state-owned Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM) operated flights between provincial capitals, but management problems and shortages of airplanes have caused delays and rescheduling of flights over the last few years.Ethiopian Airlines is one of Africa’s largest airlines, a member of the Star Alliance network since 2011 with a fleet of 88 aircraft serving 116 airports worldwide, the company’s website says.

Aquaculture in central Mozambique

The Mozambican government and the European Union are applying 3.4 million US dollars to support small scale aquaculture in the districts of Mossurize, Macate, Sussundenga and Gondola, in the central province of Manica, and in Gorongosa, in the neighbouring province of Sofala.The General Director of the Institute for the Development of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Fernando Momade, announced the figure on Friday, in the Manica provincial capital, Chimoio, during a meeting of the management commission of the aquaculture project, which is drawing up a balance of activities undertaken from 2014 to the present. The project is scheduled to end in November this year.Momade said that 87 per cent of the funding is from the European Union, channelled through the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), while the rest is provided by the Mozambican government. The aquaculture project benefits around 1,000 households living in the five target districts.

“Our main targets are those households who live in areas where we think the conditions exist for breeding fish”, said Momade. “We mobilised people to engage in aquaculture, and at the same time we provided support for opening fish tanks, and distributed beginners’ kits, including fingerlings”.

“We gave demonstrations about nutrition”, he continued, “because these households should know the importance of eating fish. The final goal is to guarantee the food security of the population”.

He said that 85 fish tanks have been stocked with almost 500,000 fingerlings. “We already have some families producing fish for their own consumption and for generating income”, said Momade. “We also have a package for setting up savings and rotating credit groups. The households are learning to save the income from fish farming”.He said that 145 groups of fish farmers have been set up in Manica and Sofala. “We see the results are encouraging because we are receiving more people who want to breed fish”.