Zambezi River Basin

Reverse biodiversity loss by 2010 The extent of protected areas has risen slightly from 66 020 at the end of the war in 1992 to 67 300 by 2001, amounting to eight per cent of the total surface area as shown in Figure 4.26. Protected areas share of total land area in Mozambique 0 8%

Malaria have been reduced significantly since 2003 and are expected to drop further by 2015, as shown in Figure 4.23. Mozambique lost 5.5 per cent of its forests in the 20 years between 1990 and 2010, but has since launched reforestation projects which have fostered denser forest cover in the wet and fertile regions while thin savannah vegetation characterizes the drier interior (Government of Mozambique 2010). Figure 4.24 shows the proportion of land area covered by forests.

Change in proportion of land area covered by forests in Mozambique

Percentage

56

Source: SADC and SARDC 2008

54

Figure 4.26

52

Mozambique shares Lake Niassa with Malawi and Tanzania (where it is known respectively as Lake Malawi or Lake Nyasa) and thus is rich in biodiversity of aquatic resources, much of it endemic, with less threat of water pollution and overfishing than the Malawi side of the lake due to low population densities. However, the freshwater fish biodiversity in Mozambique’s part of the lake is less well studied. Coastal drainage sites such as the Zambezi, the Rovuma, the Pungwe and the Buzi systems on the east coast of Mozambique also contain species that occur only in that area. However development activities are not always compatible with conservation of diversity and this is not integrated into development planning due to a lack of awareness and access to information. Mozambique is also rich in birdlife, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, but the number of threatened species recorded jumped from 41 in 1996 to 108 in 2003 as shown in Figure 4.27, in part due to greater access to areas of study.

50

48

46

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

Source: FAO 2009, 2010

Figure 4.24

The extent of carbon emissions is not well documented in Mozambique and is not considered a significant factor in environmental sustainability. While the consumption of ozone depleting substances has been increasing slowly (Figure 4.25), this too has not been studied in depth and does not appear significant.

Consumption of ozone layer depleting substances in Mozambique

Millions tonnes of ozone depleting substances

1.0

0.8

Number of threatened species in Mozambique

0.6

Thousands species

120

0.4

100

0.2

80

60

0

2003

2008

2009

40

Source: Government of Mozambique 2008

Figure 4.25

20

0 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Source: IUCN 2003, SADC and SARDC 2008

Figure 4.27

93