Travel Guide Maputo National Park

Maputo National Park was created in December 2021 in the extreme south of Mozambique. Larger than the Maputo Special Reserve it replaces, its terrestrial part covers 1,040 km2, bounded by the Indian Ocean to the east, Maputo Bay to the north, the Maputo and Futi rivers to the west and the border with South Africa to the south. Its marine protected area covers 678 km2 and corresponds to the Ponta do Ouro partial marine reserve created in 2009. The park is also part of the Lubombo transboundary conservation area, covering some 10,000 km2 and straddling Mozambique, South Africa and Eswatini. A veritable migration corridor for elephants.A park dedicated to tourism. Maputo National Park is one of those great projects for the protection of species and protected areas that you should encourage by visiting it (while avoiding the South African vacations when the park is crowded). It has to be said that the country has the potential to create some excellent safari parks - Gorongosa in particular. Unspoiled paradise beaches, mangroves, grasslands, coastal forest, dunes, numerous lakes... The scenery is truly magnificent. Accommodation and activities cater for all budgets, from luxury lodges to rustic campsites. Conservation levies fund the project to develop an economy closely linked to the protection of the park's flora and fauna. The park offers plenty of new activities, but also takes new measures to protect local communities: the local people's cultivated fields are protected by fences, according to a park decision in October 2022.Successful species reintroduction. Classified as an "elephant reserve" when it was created in 1960, this area lost virtually its entire pachyderm population during the civil war. By 1992, when peace returned, only around 60 remained, while buffalo, lion, leopard and even 65 white rhino imported from South Africa had been slaughtered to the last man. Mozambique has since signed an international convention to protect biodiversity. Since 2006, the reserve has been co-managed by the Mozambican government and Peace Parks Fondations, an NGO founded in 1997 by Dr. Anton Rupert, Nelson Mandela and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, to protect the continent's biodiversity. With the help of South Africa, some 5,000 animals have since been reintroduced: giraffes, zebras, kudus, impalas, buffalo, waterbucks, warthogs and wildebeest from neighboring Kwazulu-Natal. An elephant migration corridor was created in 2011 (the Futi Corridor), allowing elephants to travel from South Africa (Tembo National Park). Today, around 400 elephants and some 10,000 wild animals live peacefully in Maputo National Park, protected by rangers.