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SA Navy ship to become ark
9 September 2002
JOINT STATEMENT BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN NAVY, THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ANGOLA AND THE KISSAMA FOUNDATION OF ANGOLA
South Africa's Minister of Defence has offered the Kissama Foundation of Angola the services of the South African Navy in the international effort to redevelop Angola's national parks.
Minister Mosiuoa Lekota has given permission that the supply ship, the SAS Outeniqua, be used to transport elephants and other wild animals from Namibia to Angola. The animals will be at sea for three days. The elephants, gifts to Angola from the government of Botswana and the Parks Board of the North West Province of South Africa, will first be moved by road from the Tuli Game Reserve in Botswana and Madikwe Game Reserve in South Africa to the harbour of Walvis Bay in Namibia. This part of the journey is expected to take two days. The Angolan section of the journey, from Luanda to the Quiçama National Park, seventy kilometres from the capital, will also be by road.
The Angolan government's representative to South Africa, Ambassador Izak dos Anjos, stated on behalf of the government of Angola: "We have great appreciation for the support of the South African Navy, the government of Botswana and the North West Parks Board. This will help Angola to fast track the restoration of our national parks and to create new job opportunities in the tourism and conservation sectors. The Angolan Minister of Fisheries and the Environment and the Minister of Tourism are both board members of the Kissama Foundation and have supported this project in the different stages of development."
The animals are to be transported in specially adapted steel shipping containers. The trucks will be loaded onto the Outeniqua for use on the last part of the trek. A large amount of fodder is also to be shipped.
The relocation, to be undertaken in two stages over about twenty days in June next year, is called "Operation Noah's Ark" and will be the first of its kind in the world. In an innovative effort to bring relief to areas critically overpopulated by elephant, about two hundred of these animals are to be moved to a national park where all of their kind were poached during Angola's civil war of about a quarter of a century.
The Foundation's capture teams are lead by highly experienced and qualified South African capture and translocation specialists. Elephants are relocated in family groups.
The veterinarians involved in the capture as well as a veterinary team from the South African National Defence Force will accompany the animals on their journey.
Kissama plans to transport other wildlife such as roan antelope, eland, reedbuck, waterbuck and possibly cheetah at the same time. Only species that are known to have occurred previously in the area of the park, are to be released. The Foundation is also planning to move forest buffalo from other parts of Angola to Quiçama. The park covers an area of 1.2 million hectares and is situated on the Atlantic Ocean.
The Foundation started two years ago with the restocking of this national park. So far 36 elephants and a wide variety of other wildlife were released into a special conservation area inside the park. All these animals are, according to Prof Wouter van Hoven of the Centre of Wildlife Management at the University of Pretoria and President of Kissama, doing well. Several offspring have been born.
The Kissama Foundation was founded in 1996 by a group of Angolans and South Africans concerned about the state of Angola's national parks and the conservation of the country's natural resources in general. The Foundation decided to start with Quiçama, an area that never saw any fighting nor were land mines ever laid there. Angola's head of state, President José Eduardo dos Santos, is patron of the Foundation that now enjoys worldwide support.
CONTACTS:
SA NAVY, LT CDR LINDA HENDRICKS 012 339 4350
KISSAMA, PROF WOUTER VAN HOVEN 082 5573142 / 012 460 5430
MARIUS KLEYNHANS 083 627 0906
-- Issued by: Kissama Foundation |
