Maputo, Mozambique, 19 Aug – A project to increase accommodation capacity in Banhina National Park, in Mozambique’s Gaza province, is currently underway with funding of US$450,000 from the World Bank, the park’s director said.

Domingos Condjo told Mozambican news agency AIM that the project would increase the number of beds available in the park from 45 to 55, and it ahs been visited mainly by tourists from south Africa and Zimbabwe.

The director of the park also said that the funding from the World Bank would also make it possible to build more accommodation inside the park, in order to “establish a corridor for tourists.”

Additional funding of US$5,000, Also from the World Bank, is being used to develop conservation agriculture, benefitting from the communities covered by the Banhine Natural Park, as a way of repaying them for a ban on hunting and other activities that were their main sources of income.

Condjo also said that the World Bank was also funding a handicraft promotion project amongst resident communities in the park, which was created in 1972, to protect the ostrich.

The Banhine National Park already has a conservation research centre, construction of which had funding of US$150,000 from the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), a US-based non-governmental organisation dedicated to the preservation of biodiversity. (macauhub)