Mercedes Sayagues
One of Africa’s most pristine coastal areas may soon be lost if the Mozambican government carries out its plan to build a deep-sea port just south of the Maputo Elephant Reserve.
The project is a $515-million partnership recently approved between the state railways Caminhos de Ferro de Mocambique (CFM) and the firm Porto Dobela. The latter is linked to two South African businessmen supported by investors based in New York. The partners have formed Society Porto Dobela Development, headquartered on the Isle of Mann.
Spreading over 20 000ha in Matutuine district, the project includes an industrial zone, a highway and a railway. It promises jobs for 2 500 people in the first year and 10 000 when it is completed.
Mozambican environmentalists warn that the development would change completely the ecological and social structure of Matutuine district.
The port would alter water supply for the nearby Piti coastal lagoon, the largest in Matutuine, and reduce the reserve’s wildlife habitat. Industrial pollution and ships would have a negative impact on marine life. Nearby is a coral reef several kilometres long, one of the southernmost in the world.
The project runs counter to previous agreements and plans of the Mozambican government. The port sits in the middle of the 226 000ha granted in concession for ecotourism to American billionaire James Ulysses Blanchard III, who died in March.
The decision may be partly explained by the fiasco of the Blanchard project. Of the $800-million Blanchard boasted he would invest, little materialised. So the government is trying with another mega project, in completely the opposite direction.
The area south of Maputo down to the border with KwaZulu-Natal was declared for conservation purposes in a couple of national plans for tourism and land use. The World Bank counts on it for its Trans Frontier Park project. So does the spatial development initiative signed between Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa.
What irks Antonio Reina, regional director of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, is, first, the lack of transparency in the deal. Official documents are not available. And, secondly, that the agreement was signed without an environmental impact assessment study.
“If the deal falls through because of its negative environmental impact, the Mozambican government looks like a fool in front of its citizens and in front of the world,” he says.
The area is considered among the world’s 240 areas of great biodiversity. Africa has roughly 25 of these. To lose one would be foolish.