TOURISM AND CONSERVATION OPPORTUNITIES
Interdependency between conservation, utilization and
benefit sharing has been established from the onset of
the Coutada 5 project. The commercial activities that
will take place on the Coutada should pave and pay the
way for the conservation of the biodiversity resources,
whilst at the same time being totally dependent on
maintaining (or establishing in certain respects) a
healthy environment and the goodwill and support of the
local communities. The commercial development of Coutada
5 may impact in a number of ways on the environment on
which it depends. Tourism and tourism-related activities
are thus inseparable from the biodiversity resources.
The general primary and secondary objectives for
sustainable ecotourism development in the Coutada can be
summarized as follows:
“The primary objective of sustainable ecotourism
development is to develop ecotourism facilities and
activities within the Coutada that are both sensitive to
a biodiversity-rich ecosystem and beneficial to the
conservation of the ecosystem, as well as forming a
basis for financial self-sustainability. A secondary
objective is to assist in ensuring that the rapidly
expanding ecotourism developments in the northern areas
of Mozambique are also environmentally sustainable.”
More specifically, the tourism development objectives
can be defined as follows: firstly to develop a
biodiversity friendly strategic tourism development plan
which will establish a set of principles, frameworks and
mechanisms on which the ecotourism development will be
based, and secondly to review tourism-based current and
prospective community benefit-sharing and make
recommendations for its maximization.
The Sustainable Tourism Development Program is based on
four modules: Module 1 entails a 9-step sustainable
tourism development plan, module 2 highlights possible
regional institutional tourism developments, module 3
provides for codes of practice and module 4 designs an
interpretation program.
The project will contribute to the general economy of
the region in various ways. Tourism will create
opportunities during the construction phase of
facilities, and during the operational phase (primarily
employment opportunities, but also a variety of
entrepreneurial possibilities). Furthermore, obligated
payments to the Community Trust Fund will be available
for distribution. The establishment of the
wildlife-based industry in the core wildlife-wilderness
block will create a host of advantages, financial and
otherwise, to the local project-affected people.
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