The process of establishing the management conditions of the Primeiras and Segundas Environmental Protection Area (APAIPS) has taken a significant step with the establishment of local housing for the Administrator Ricardina Matusse from October 2019.

These conditions will enable Ricardina Matusse, APAIPS’s first administrator, appointed by ANAC in December 2018, to be able to fully start her duties and to establish the remaining conditions for the operation of APAIPS’s administrative headquarters in the city of Angoche, Nampula province. This ANAC presence on the ground is important to reinforce and expand coordination and collaboration activities, with other actors already working in this Conservation Area.

This logistical support was made possible by BIOFUND’s financial resources resulting from the annual income from the endowment (long-term invested capital fund, where only its annual income is used) donated by Conservation International, specifically for the long-term support of this Conservation Area of great biodiversity and biological wealth.

APAIPS was made official by Decree No. 42/2012 issued on 12 December 2012.

One of the main reasons that motivated the creation of APAIPS is the fact that it is a large system of marine influence where a large “deep reef range” develops and in some places surface, with great richness in biological diversity being an integral part of the East African Marine Eco-Region from southern Somalia to the Kwazulu-Natal coast in the Republic of South Africa (RAS). This area of environmental protection ensures the integrity of the connection between coastal and marine habitats, physically and ecologically, with emphasis on:

• Mangrove forests along the various estuaries;
• Seagrass beds;
• Coral reefs;
• Large sand banks forming part of Sofala Bank;
• Water gradients from the coast to depths of over 1000 meters in less than 25 to 35 km from the coast harboring various plant and wildlife species

Due to its ecological importance, APAIPS is an area that can bring environmental social economic benefits to the communities within it, and their effective involvement and permanent supervision by the authorities is important.