Country to Complete Land Zoning by 2012

1 May 2011

Maputo — Mozambican government expects to be in a position to safely guide development projects on hold, after the completion of land zoning which is set to be completed by the end of 2012.

This assurance was given in Maputo on Saturday by the National Director of Lands and Forests, Dinis Lissave, during a brief interview with AIM, on the sidelines of the two-day 4th National Conference on Community Natural Resources Management.

According Lissave, the government introduced a new model for land zoning in the country to accurately determine spaces available and their location.

This is an ecological zoning on a scale of 1:250,000 started last year and implemented as a pilot project in the central Mozambican province of Zambezia.

The government identified and zoned 750,000 hectares of available land that could be used for the implementation of a number of development projects.

This year, using the same method, the government expects to zone the northern provinces of Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Nampula as well as the central provinces of Tete and Manica.

In 2012, the government hopes to complete the process with the zoning of the central province of Sofala and also Inhambane, Gaza and Maputo in south of Mozambique.

“Ecological zoning on a scale 1:250 000 was implemented in a pilot project in Zambezia and successfully completed. Now, we will move to other provinces in the country, and in 2012 we will complete this activity. Currently, we have favourable conditions for developing projects in areas where zoning was competed “, said Lissave.

“From 2012, the country will definitely be in a position to safely guide development projects which are on hold for the completion of land zoning for their implementation”, he added.

Land zoning seeks to identify areas that could be used for reforestation projects, agricultural/livestock production, tourism development, among other activities as a means to prevent conflicts over land use among all stakeholders in the country.

Often such conflicts arise because land allocation does not follow the existing regulations. For example, sometimes land is granted for deployment industrial projects in a region with huge potential for tourism development.

Moreover, land zoning will help to lure both domestic and foreign investors, since approved projects would soon be directed to specific areas instead of being put on hold pending the identification of suitable land.

Currently, there are a number of projects on hold waiting for the allocation of space for their implementation, as most require large tracts of land.

The new zoning on a scale 1:250 000 will replace the existing 1:1,000,000 used in Mozambique, which in recent years proved ineffective, given its general nature.

“Zoning on a scale 1: 1,000,000 was too general and often caused problems of overlapping of activities. That’s the reason in 2010 we decided to introduce a new scale 1:250,000 which is more accurate and allows us to visualize clearly the existing activities in each particular region”, explained Lissave.

The Conference brought together representatives of various sectors, including civil society and government to discuss community management of natural resources based on a new approach for sustainable development and poverty reduction in the country.

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