LESOTHO and South Africa created a joint 8_000-square-kilometre conservation area on Monday over mountains straddling the border. The Maluti-Drakensberg Transfrontier Conservation Area will incorporate Lesotho’s Sehlaba-Thebe (Plateau of the Shield) national park in the southeast of the small kingdom and several South African reserves in KwaZulu-Natal province. The area created will stretch from the Golden Gate National Park in South Africa’s Free State province south to Ongeluksnek, a distance of about 350km, along the length of the Drakensberg and Maluti mountain ranges. The Maluti and Drakensberg mountains are renowned for their scenic beauty, significant plant and animal biodiversity, and unique habitats. Among the rare and endangered wildlife there are the bearded vulture, or lammergeyer, and a unique species of fresh-water minnow. The Drakensberg is also home to about 2 500 species of plant, almost a third of which occur nowhere else. The World Bank’s Global Environment Facility is providing a $15 million grant for the project over the next five years. – AFP