The first 19 white rhinos have been successfully translocated from South Africa to Zinave National Park in Mozambique through the longest road transfer of rhinos ever done.
Mozambique (07 July 2022) – More than four decades after they were driven to extinction in the region, rhinos are once again roaming the wilds of Mozambique following an ambitious project to relocate a number of the animals from neighbouring South Africa.
This landmark and pioneering rewilding initiative, the first in a series of white and black rhino translocations still to follow, is the result of a partnership between Mozambique’s National Administration for Conservation Areas (ANAC), Peace Parks Foundation and Exxaro Resources, in support of and in collaboration with the Governments of Mozambique and South Africa. The President of Mozambique, His Excellency, Filipe Nyusi today visited Zinave to celebrate the return of the species to the park in more than four decades.
The rebuilding of a founder white and black rhino population will take place over the next few years as part of a national conservation initiative to reintroduce rhinos back to safe havens in the country.
The introduction of the rhino to Zinave will create the only “big five” national park in Mozambique. The overall objective since the signing of a long-term Co-management Agreement in 2015 between ANAC and Peace Parks was to rewild the park to create a healthy ecosystem by introducing viable wildlife populations, attract tourists back to the park and support the livelihoods of local communities living around the park.
To date, 2,400 game animals representing 14 different species have been introduced to Zinave including elephant, sable, giraffe, buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, leopard and hyena. Notably a small lion population introduced themselves to the park indicating the functionality of the corridors between the five national parks in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA) between Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
“Significant and noteworthy progress has been made in the rewilding and rehabilitation of our national parks in Mozambique over the past decade” said Mozambique’s Minister of Land and Environment, Ivete Maibaze. “We are very proud of our collaboration with long-term partner Peace Parks Foundation that has played a key role in this journey.”
The Great Limpopo is one of the largest transfrontier conservation areas in the world spanning 100,000 square kilometres and was formally established 20 years ago by the Heads of State of the three countries through a Treaty.
The introduction of rhino to Zinave is the pinnacle of the wildlife reintroduction programme and an important measure for the survival of the species by establishing a new founder population in a national park in Mozambique. To put this in context, over the past decade, over 8,000 black and white rhinos (over one-third of the entire population left in the world) have been lost to poaching in southern Africa and this has greatly reduced the last remaining wild populations of this keystone species.
To protect rhino for future generations, the reintroduction of rhinos to new suitable habitats, with capacity to rebuild large viable breeding herds in big open systems under strong security and conservation management measures is one of the many measures currently undertaken by Peace Parks to help safeguard this flagship species – and Zinave is such a safe haven, and a true conservation success story.
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