The leaders of three southern African countries are due to sign a treaty on Monday that will bring into existence the world’s largest game park.
Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe are due to give their assent to the 95 000-square-kilometre, cross-border park.
The ceremony is scheduled to take place in the Mozambican resort of Xai Xai, 200 kilometres north of Maputo.
The game park, to be called the Great Limpopo National Park, joins together the Kruger National Park in South Africa, the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique and Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe.
Tourists will be able to cross from one country to another with just one visa.
The Kruger and Gonarezhou parks are already in business, so most of the planning has focussed on the Limpopo park. Infrastructure and wildlife in the former Portuguese colony were almost wiped out during Mozambique’s 16-year-long civil war, which ended in late 1992.
Major investment in the park is still required. Thousands of animals, including elephants, zebras and warthogs, have been given new homes in Mozambique as part of the project.
South Africa’s Kruger National Park is by far the most visited and developed of the three parks and has about one million visitors per year.
Once opened, the Great Limpopo Park will differ from traditional parks in that it will allow permanent human settlements and wildlife to occupy the same space.
A bridge across the Limpopo river at Pafuri is one of the new structures needed to let visitors roam across national borders without leaving the park.
South Africa, which has experienced a spate of robberies from and murders and rapes of tourists near the Kruger park, is anxious for some positive publicity. There is talk of a new airport nearby with direct flights to Europe.
The South African environment and tourist ministry hailed the project as an example of regional cooperation and sustainable development.
Its statement said: ”The park will open to the world the biggest ever animal kingdom, increasing foreign investment into the region and creating much-needed jobs for our people, further acting as a symbol of peace and unity for the African people.”
The Great Limpopo park follows the example of three smaller transfrontier parks created by South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Lesotho.
Communities affected are reported to have backed the project after assurances of compensation.
Monday’s signing ceremony marks the end of the political negotiations and the beginning of work by a joint management board on security, conservation, tourism and personnel.
The Kruger national park, which stretches along the Mozambique border, has the reputation of being one of the most unspoilt of savanna landscapes, a place where visitors can drive for hours without seeing another human. Many baboons, zebras, water bucks, vervet monkeys and impalas have become so used to vehicles that they ignore them. – Sapa-AFP, Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001