Project Information Document (PID) Report No. AB1224 Project Name MOZAMBIQUE - Transfrontier Conservation Areas and Public Disclosure Authorized Tourism Development Project Region Africa Sector Forestry (50%); General agriculture, fishing and forestry sector (40%); General industry and trade sector (10%) Theme Biodiversity (P); Other environment and natural resources management (S); Environmental policies and institutions (S); Other financial and private sector development (S) Project P071465 Supplemental Project P076809 Borrower(s) REPUBLIC OF MOZAMBIQUE Implementing Agency(ies) MINISTRY OF TOURISM, TFCA UNIT AND DNAC Address: Ministry of Tourism, Avenue 25 de Setembro, 1018 - P.O. Box 614, Maputo, Mozambique Public Disclosure Authorized Contact Person: Dr. Bartolomeu Soto, Head, TFCA Unit Tel: 258 1 420979 / Fax: 258 1 306212 Environment Category B (Partial Assessment) Date PID Prepared June 20, 2005 Auth Appr/Negs Date May 10, 2005 Bank Approval Date October 15, 2005 1. Country and Sector Background Poverty - At the end of the conflict in 1992, Mozambique was listed as the poorest country in the world. Since then it has experienced a relatively high rate of growth (averaged 8.5 percent, and GDP per capita increased by 6 percent per year between 1995-2002). However, the benefits of Public Disclosure Authorized this growth have been concentrated in Maputo and other urban areas. Rural areas, where 71 percent of Mozambicans live, continue to be affected by extreme poverty. The challenge for Mozambique is to continue to achieve high rates of economic growth while widening the distribution of the benefits. Biodiversity - Mozambique falls within the biodiversity-rich Zambezian biogeographic region, and contains a wide diversity of habitats including mountainous, woodland, wetland and coastal/marine ecosystems. Its 2,700 km of coastline is unique in the East African Marine Region in terms of the quality, diversity and species richness. Many of the most important areas are on, or very close, to international frontiers and well-established conservation areas and tourism routes in neighboring countries. These large areas are important both for their biodiversity richness and because they contain topographic and ecological gradients and transition zones, and historical corridors for large-scale animal movements (terrestrial and marine). Among the most significant are the Chimanimani massif and the Maputaland area and Lebombo mountain range (notable for Public Disclosure Authorized their high levels of endemism), the Gaza area adjacent to South Africa’s Kruger National Park. These national parks, in addition to conserving biodiversity, represent valuable tourism assets. Tourism in Mozambique - In Mozambique, tourism is starting from a low base, but arrivals increased by 10-15 % annually between 1995-2001, reaching 400,000 in 2001. Tourism is also now the third largest investment sector in the country. The GOM has taken actions to promote this economic sector, including creating a separate Ministry of Tourism (MITUR) in 2001, adopting a Tourism Policy and Implementation Strategy (TPIS 2003) and preparing a Strategic Plan for Tourism Development in Mozambique (SPTD 2004-2008). The policy and strategic plan recognize that Mozambique’s comparative advantage lies in its varied and relatively pristine environment, together with its rich cultural heritage, as well as the potential to link with South Africa. It identifies tourism as a means to provide new sources of income in some of the poorest areas of the country, where agricultural potential is low, and to attract investment to these areas. These factors among others have led the GOM to identify the Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) as Priority Areas for Tourism Development (PATIs). Transfrontier Conservation Areas - TFCAs, as described in the country biodiversity and tourism strategies, are large, defined areas which include both core Protected Areas (PAs) and multiple- use (“interstitial1”) areas where the primary management objective is to promote environmentally sustainable development compatible with the TFCA’s conservation goals. The TFCA concept reflects the GOM’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP), including the participation of local communities and other stakeholders and sustainable use of the natural resources by communities, particularly through sustainable tourism. Chimanimani, Lubombo, Greater Limpopo were Mozambique’s first three Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs). Two more TFCAs are planned: the Niassa-Cabo Delgado TFCA (linking terrestrial and marine conservation areas with others in Tanzania and possibly Malawi), and the Zimoza TFCA (linking a community natural resource management area in northwest Mozambique with conservation areas in Zimbabwe and Zambia). These large natural areas represent important global biodiversity resources, as well as a valuable resource base for a sustainable tourism industry. Annex 17 provides further details. Tourism and conservation planning - The GOM strategy recognizes that a cross-sectoral approach is needed to develop economically, environmentally and socially sound tourism. This includes integrating tourism needs into local and national the economic and physical planning processes and priorities, so that options for sustainable tourism development are not foreclosed by incompatible development that may generate short term returns for a small number of people, at the cost of longer term sustainability and wider economic impacts. The strategic plan therefore indicates that Integrated District Development Planning (IDDP) should be carried out in all the PATIs, to provide a guiding framework for development of the areas. The IDDP process begins with and is a logical extension of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), which has been identified by the Ministry of Environmental Coordination (MICOA) as the key to mainstreaming environmental sustainability issues in development, particularly at the Provincial, District and local level, as called for in the National Environmental Management Plan. The TFCA Program The program - The Transfrontier Conservation Area and Tourism Development Project (TFCATDP) represents the second phase of a 15-year program (the TFCA Program). The long- term objectives of the TFCA Program are to conserve the biodiversity and natural ecosystems within the TFCAs, and to promote economic growth and development based on sustainable use of their natural resources by local communities, with a particular emphasis on ecotourism. The TFCA program supports the establishment and management of multiple-use conservation areas (including core PAs) on the Mozambique side of three areas with significant transboundary biodiversity linkages. Environmentally sustainable tourism development links the conservation 1 i.e., the non-protected areas within which the PAs are embedded 2 and development objectives of the TFCAs by providing an economic alternative to unsustainable, destructive use of natural resources, as well as a direct economic incentive to maintain the natural ecosystems and their biodiversity. While the TFCAs span national boundaries, this is a national program supporting the GOM’s participation in international agreements and committees aimed at coordinating activities across the national borders, and on- the-ground activities in the portions of the TFCAs within Mozambique. A TFCA program in South Africa and several smaller scale initiatives in Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe complements it. Phase 1 (completed) - The first phase of the program, supported by the GEF-financed Transfrontier Conservation Areas Pilot and Institutional Strengthening project (1998-2003) (TFCAPISP), was developed in the context of a growing interest in large scale (including transboundary) spatial development initiatives (SDI) within the southern African region. The TFCAPISP launched the TFCA concept. Its achievements include the establishment of three TFCAs (Limpopo, Chimanimani and Lubombo), policy and institutional development, and modest investments to strengthen the management of the PAs within those three TFCAs. While these achievements provided an enabling context, the TFCAs remain somewhat intangible on the ground, lacking boundaries, legal designation, and institutional structures and procedures for land use planning and management of natural resources2. Phase 2 (this project) - The TFCATDP will support the second phase of the program, to implement the TFCA concept on the ground in the original 3 TFCAs. The newer Niassa-Cabo Delgado and Zimoza TFCAs will be developed through funding from separate donor and NGO projects. The main strategic choices for phase 2 of the TFCA program are: (1) legal designation of TFCAs, including establishment of regulations, criteria, procedures and institutional structures for planning, management and development); (2) the preparation and implementation of a IDDPs in each TFCA, to provide an environmentally sustainable framework for land use planning, natural resource management and development investment within the TFCAs; (3) the development of environmentally sound and socially progressive nature tourism (emphasizing community/private sector partnership), and directly related economic activities, in areas with high tourism potential as identified in the IDDPs; and (4) improving the effectiveness of the PA networks within the TFCAs by: (a) improving the management capacity of the National Directorate for Conservation Areas (DNAC), (b) expanding or creating new formal