Mocâmedes - More than six thousand tourists, including nationals and foreigners, have visited the Iona National Park since the entry into operation of new infrastructures to support tourism in May 2024, the park's administrator, Sango dos Anjos Carlos de Sá, said on Tuesday.
Speaking to ANGOP, the official made it known that, this year, the operational conditions for management were created, stressing the need to invest more in infrastructure to support tourism activity.
Without quantifying the revenues collected, the administrator pointed out that fees are already charged in accordance with the Decree on access fees to environmental conservation areas.
The administrator explained that the Park has the tourism development service in operation at the level of reception and guidance on land conditions.
The official reported the registration of two cases of poaching, with members of the community as perpetrators.
'The park has 170 employees, of these, 72 are assigned to the inspection service (including former military personnel and wildlife monitors recruited from local communities) properly trained', he said.
Regarding the program to repopulate the species in the park, the source stressed that it is going well, because, in addition to the repopulation of the giraffe population in the region, where they no longer existed for several decades, a feasibility study was carried out to reintroduce the black rhinoceros, lion and elephant, historical species of the Park.
He said they were committed to the reintroduction of the plains zebra, one of the subspecies of the genus eqqus zebra that cohabited with the other subspecies of mountain zebra that still exists in the park.
He stressed the need to strengthen the population of the black-faced Impala, a subspecies that in Angola only exists in the Iona National Park and that is very vulnerable, as its habitat is under great anthropogenic pressure, due to the communities.
Regarding the conservation of biodiversity, the faunal list is composed of Orix, gazelles, olongo, cheetahs, Angolean giraffe, mountain zebra, jackal, monkey, dog, black-faced impala, seals, brown hyena, among others. VR/SEC/DOJ
