U.S. Businessman Eyes Prospects for Wildlife Park in Mozambique

Few things are normal about the Matatuine region of southern Mozambique. The scrub land is untouched. The beaches are pristine.

Elephants graze in tall reeds. Shy game animals like red forest duiker and gray reedbuck bounce through the brush. They are the surprising survivors of 15 years of civil war and drought that decimated wildlife in the rest of the southeast African nation.

The unusual blend of wildlife and rare environmental features gained the area designation as one of the world’s 200 special biodiversity sites by the 1992 U.N. Earth Summit.

Now an American businessman wants to build a huge game park and resort complex in the 580,000-acre territory--almost the size of Rhode Island--complete with a five-star hotel, floating casinos and bush lodges with access to the tropical coast and wild interior.

The government-approved project would bring badly needed investment and tourism to one of the world’s poorest countries, struggling to recover from the war that ended in 1992.

But it also would change forever the environmental balance of the Matatuine area, which begins just 18 miles south of Maputo, the capital. And it probably would displace most of the 15,000 people living in the region.

The driving force is John Blanchard III, a New Orleans millionaire who made his fortune dealing in gold, including mining in South Africa and neighboring Botswana.

Among his exploits were arranging to have a “Legalize Gold” banner flown over Richard Nixon’s presidential inauguration in 1973 and helping Oliver North support anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua.

Blanchard, 53, also backed the conservative Mozambique National Resistance in its civil war with the then Marxist government. He says that support somehow earned the government’s respect for his interest in the country.

In a telephone interview, he told how the government asked him after the country’s first multi-party election in 1994 what further help he could provide. His answer was the game park, for which he has promised to raise $800 million from international business interests.

“I was accused of being a naive environmentalist and conservationist, and on the other hand a manipulator working both sides,” Blanchard said. “[But] both business-wise and environmentally, it’s a very beautiful thing.”

His passion for the forested dune ridges, rolling savanna and hippopotamus-strewn lakes filled a need the government was unable to meet.

“The government does not have the resources to develop the area itself,” said Arlindo Langa, director of the National Tourism Directorate. “The project is an excellent opportunity to protect the environment. . . . At the same time, it will contribute to economic development and benefit local communities.”

Not everyone agrees.

“Jim is a businessman, and he has nothing to do with the politics or well-being of this country,” said Vincent Ululu, a member of Parliament for the former rebel group once backed by Blanchard. “The project will benefit the big bosses of Mozambique.”

The resort plan envisions building hotels and lodges on the beach to lessen impact on the interior. Tourists would gamble on floating casinos, snorkel in the coral reefs and view ocean wildlife that includes whale sharks and dugongs --sea mammals that prompted mermaid legends. They would travel inland only on wildlife safaris.

Some environmental groups support the idea, subject to strict controls and changes in some plans.

For example, they warn that restocking the territory with 35,000 game animals, including lions, could do more harm than good.

“There’s a lot of sand, which does not support great nutritious vegetation,” said Jose Alvez of the international Endangered Wildlife Trust. “If the grazers do not thrive, the lions may move out of the area and seek food elsewhere.”

While residents are happy about the prospect of new jobs, they worry that lions--which have not lived in the area for at least 50 years--will eat them, said Marcus Buezberger of the Swiss charity Helvetas.

They also worry that fences to be erected to protect their crops from elephants would deny them access to broad areas for grazing and watering their cattle.

Nelson Banza, who lives in the fishing village of Mashengulu, said news of the project has yet to reach most residents in the region. “The government can’t put us off the land,” he said.

Officials insist people will not be forced to move. Instead, they want to persuade people to move to villages outside the park where they can benefit from jobs, development and money from the project, said Antonio Reina, country director for the Endangered Wildlife Trust.

But Reina, who is on a committee overseeing the project, considers parts of the plan too ambitious.

The hotel and lodge plan is not final, but is expected to include accommodations for 5,000 guests, said Eugene Gouws, a tourism consultant to Blanchard.

Reina said that would bring as many as 15,000 workers, with their families and accompanying services, to the fragile land. That would have a “heavy, heavy social impact,” he said.

Others raise concerns about the unusual manner in which Blanchard got government permission for the project, despite his support for the former rebels and his lack of experience in environmental matters or building game parks.

President Joaquim Chissano’s government bypassed a consultation process that requires comment from citizens and government ministries before any development can occur on Mozambique’s coast.

“What scares the private sector in Mozambique is that no national entrepreneur has been given the opportunity to develop its own proposals for this area,” said Luis Sarmento of Prosul, a local tourism company.

But Blanchard said enough controls were in place.

“We’re doing this in an open and transparent way,” he said. “We have everyone in the world looking over our shoulder.”