ENVIRONMENT-MOZAMBIQUE: Rediscovering The Beauty Of Mozambique

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

Nov 26 2001 (IPS) - No African country has more Indian Ocean coastline than Mozambique, whose 2 600 kilometre stretch from Tanzania to South Africa is spotted by several fishing villages, metropolitan Maputo to the south and the port of Beira half-way down.

And, according to environmentalists and tourism boosters, the Mozambican coastline is perhaps the most unspoiled and attractive beachfront to be found in Africa.

“The best thing about it is that most of Mozambique’s coast is still undeveloped,” says Angela Boralho, a tour guide in Maputo. Her enthusiasm is two-fold: Ecotourists and cultural tourists, an adventurous sub- group of travellers, appreciate seafront environments as yet undefiled by mass development, while such lucrative property offers potential for development as resorts and casino sites for mainstream tourism.

Mozambican officials of the National Tourism Fund, a government agency under the Department of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, have come up with a slogan that the nation’s coast is “ripe for (re)discovery.” While targeting new visitors, the slogan also consciously seeks to entice back tourists from the pre-Independence colonial power, Portugal, and other Europeans who deserted the country at the outbreak of civil war in 1975, a conflict that devastated Mozambique for 29 years.

The effects of the war are apparent on the tourism infrastructure. Two-thirds of Mozambique Island, off the coast of Nampula Province, was declared a “World Heritage Site” by the United Nation’s education and culture agency UNESCO in 1992, largely because of the main village’s unique style of domestic architecture, which is built out of technicolor- bright coral reef.

But many of the homes have deteriorated in recent years due to neglect, as owners were forced to leave the island during the war and post- war hard times to seek employment at mainland agriculture plantations.

“Tourism will restore the houses,” says Simeo Ratilal, a resident and fisherman. A symbiotic relationship will develop, islanders believe, as tourists drawn to the unique houses will enrich the local economy, enabling the homeowners to fix their properties and thus draw more visitors.

Ratilal’s catch, by the way, will be another tourism lure: each sunset when he draws in his fishing nets, he encircles a huge bonfire he sets ablaze on the beach with three rings of silvery mackerel and other fish he has caught that day: hundreds of his and other fishermen’s catches that are then dried for later transport to the mainland. Tourists visiting the island are the only ones, other than the locals, who can sample the fish fresh from the sea.

Everyone familiar with Mozambique seems to have his or her own opinion about where the first tourism boom will strike the country, now that economic recovery seems assured. Last year, Mozambique received its first major news coverage since the end of civil war hostilities in 1994, but the publicity was not helpful to tourism. Scenes of floodwaters inundating the lower portion of the country were broadcast widely, and visitor numbers plummeted along with economic growth that year, which was down due to cyclone-related damage.

But in 2001, economic growth has spurted ahead by 15 percent, and one of the first major tourism initiatives has as its principal sponsor the old colonial power Portugal.

December will see the first 50 tourists, expected from Portugal and the United States, to set foot in a 1,5 million United States dollar game lodge at Moamba, halfway between Maputo and the South African border. Surrounded by 10 000 hectares of game reserve stocked with giraffe, zebra, elephants and other big game imported from South Africa, the lodge is the first endeavour to come out of the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative entered into by Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa to boost commerce and tourism in their shared Lubombo mountain area. The consortium that built the lodge is headed by Ferpinta, a company that intends to invest 12 million United States dollars in the country’s tourism sector.

But the park is not on the coast, and the beach is where tourism officials feel the real action will come in the future. “Pemba province (sic) is where most of the tourism development should go,” predicts South Africa’s high commissioner to Mozambique, Jesse Duarte. Actually, Pemba is the main town of Cabo Delgado, the country’s northernmost province.

For most of its existence, Pemba has been a sleepy backwater, because traders preferred to do business out on the coastal islands. With little industry, there has been little pollution, and the water lapping the town’s beaches is as clear and blue as tropical water can be, set against swaying palm trees that grow out of a bed of perennially blazing red and orange bougainvillea bushes.

“Of course, the high commissioner would want development at Cabo Delgado, because it would draw tourists from Tanzania,” laughs Maputo tour guide Angela Boralho. “But Maputo province, which is on the South African border, is also on the fast-track, and this is where the air travellers and cruise ships arrive first.”

All, but three, of Mozambique’s 10 provinces are on the ocean. Each wants to draw international attention to its most famous beaches. Cabo Delgado has the white sands of Praia do Wimbe (Wimbe beach), and Praia do Farol, the “beach of the lighthouse,” named after the landmark white 19th century lighthouse anchoring one end. Nampula Province has Praia de Fernao Veloso (Fernao Veloso’s beach) and Praia das Chocas, where people from the inland go to frolic.

The only access to Zambezia province’s Praia de Zalala is via a 45-kilometre road from the town Quelimane. But the stretch of talcum-fine white sand shaded by leafy casuarinas trees makes the drive worthwhile. Sofala’s beaches are extensive, undeveloped and largely unnamed. The province awaits visitors to stake out the best sites. In contrast, Inhambane province has a dozen well-known beaches where private and public resorts are located, especially around Baia dos Cocos (Coconut Bay).

The best surfing along the coast is said to be at Praia de Maceneta at Maputo province, while some of the best coral reefs in the country can be found in Gaza province by the ruins of a once classic hotel at Praia do Chongoene.

Coral reefs to be viewed by snorklers, scuba divers and by glass-bottom boats may prove the main attraction for Mozambique’s coast. Alarmingly, 59 percent of the Indian Ocean’s precious coral reefs have been permanently destroyed, most recently from bleaching that has resulted from global warming, according to the global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. 24 percent of the world’s coral reefs are located in the Indian Ocean.

Worst hit have been countries north of Mozambique. Reefs off Kenya, the Seychelles, Tanzania and Comoros have seen live coral losses of 80- 90 percent, due also to damage from pollution, theft of coral for retail sale in the developed world, and damage from fishing.

Mozambique, due to decades of underdevelopment, has not had these dangers assaulting its coral reefs.

“But with economic and growth and more visitors, we must be mindful of the reefs, and careful not kill the goose that lays the golden egg, the fabulous coral reefs that can be such tourism draws,” says Boralho.