
Massingir (Mozambique), 5 Aug (AIM) – The Peace Parks Foundation (PPF), a South African conservation organization, has launched six safe cattle grazing areas for communities living inside the Limpopo National Park, in Massingir district, in the southern Mozambican province of Gaza.
The area is regarded as a solution to the chronic problem of human-wildlife conflict, characterized by attacks against livestock, especially cattle, by predators such as hyenas and lions.
The project, which is budgeted at just over five million US dollars, includes the construction of water holes for communities, rotating pastures and mobile cattle pens.
The measure intends to protect the animals from attacks, as well as concentrating livestock in the same space for greater control against stock theft.
According to several cattle breeders, interviewed by AIM, before the initiative, the cattle used to travel over 20 kilometers to drink water, a grueling journey for the animals, which in addition to the sacrifice of searching for water in the rivers, faced problems due to the scarcity of pasture in some areas of Massingir
“In the park, the animals were attacked by lions and hyenas, but here outside the park the cattle are never attacked. In Mavodze last year, I lost 16 steers to hyenas. Here there is an advantage, since the cattle are close to pasture and water”, said Davide Mateule, one of the prominent breeders in the communities inside the park, with over 150 head of cattle.
Another breeder, named Jorge Ngovene, said that it was difficult to farm inside the park, because the water was far away and so was the pasture.
For his part, Délcio Julião, manager of the “Herding for Health” project, supported by Peace Parks, said that the project also contributes to the ecosystem balance inside the park, since there used to be competition for grazing between wild and domestic animals.
He claimed that the chain of transmission of diseases such as foot-and-mouth, a highly contagious disease that usually passes from wild animals to domestic livestock, notably cattle, has also been stopped.
“With these actions, predators are unable to attack the cattle”, he added.
(AIM)
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