World Bank funds Zambia-Malawi biodiversity project

The World Bank has approved a grant which will help Zambia and Malawi to establish trans-frontier management of biodiversity in Nyika Trans-Frontier Conservation Area (TFCA) that borders the two countries, the Zambia Daily Mail reported on Friday.


The TFCA was a 3,000 square km rich biodiversity and a spectacularly scenic park that joins together Zambia's smallest national park in the eastern part of the country to Malawi's largest national park.


In a statement released by the World Bank office in Zambia, the Bank has given the two countries 4.8 million U. S. dollars for the project in which Zambia will be allocated 2.24 million dollars while the remaining will go to Malawi.


The grant will assist the two countries to create a new trans- boundary protected area system through expansion and consolidation of the shared Nyika National Parks and other protected areas.


Kapil Kapoor, World Bank country manager to Zambia, said the grant will significantly contribute to the maintenance of a biodiversity asset of national and global value to the world.


"More importantly, the Nyika Trans-Frontier Conservation Area will create tourism and employment opportunities for the people, thereby enhancing governments' effort to diversify their economies. " The World Bank official was quoted as saying by the paper.


According to him, the Nyika TFCA has the potential to attract significant revenues from nature-based tourism, enriching existing eco-tourism circuits in both countries.


The Project will address three aspects of the protected area management that includes defining and setting up a sustainable cross-boundary financing mechanism to cover recurrent costs of the Nyika Implementation Agency and the protected areas.


It will also cover ecologically viable ecosystems and habitats and building institutional and systemic cross-boundary capacity to manage the TFCA to achieve commonly set and agreed objectives.


The establishment of the Nyika TFCA was seen as a fully integrated protected area management scheme within the broader context and the two countries plan to formally establish the TFCA through an international treaty.


The 2,500 meters high Nyika Plateau contains leopards, roans, elands and elephants as well as Africa's richest orchid communities and a number of endemic plant and bird species.
(Source:http://news.xinhuanet.com)