The Foundation for the Conservation of Biodiversity (BIOFUND), through the Biodiversity Conservation and Community Development Project (CBDC) and the company Café de Manica, recently signed a partnership protocol to create a mechanism to channel funds for the development of the Chimanimani National Park..

This initiative arises as an alternative to reduce the pressure on natural resources and to establish new sources of income for the local communities. In this context, Café de Manica has introduced the cultivation of shade-grown coffee into the buffer zone of the Chimanimani National Park, in degraded areas, and in fields between lines of agricultural crops. This innovation, in addition to introducing an alternative, high income crop, also makes it possible to retain farmers in their areas of production, thus reducing the bush clearance that was practiced in that region and helping to restore the area. It has already benefitted, about 300 households who are working on the production and sale of coffee in an area of approximately 350 hectares.

This is the first BIOFUND partnership which seeks to channel income from a private company to a specific Conservation Area, and it will have the duration of 5 years. It allows the company Café de Manica to channel 2% of its revenue from the sale of processed coffee, to support improvements in environmental and social practices, and in publicising the importance of the biodiversity of the Chimanimani National Park. BIOFUND will be responsible for the management, monitoring, disbursement and financial supervision of the sums channelled to the Chimanimani National Park.

Café de Manica is a Mozambican company dedicated to the production, processing and sale of coffee, through the integration of local communities in economically sustainable coffee production systems.

Implemented by BIOFUND, the Biodiversity Conservation and Community Development Project in the Chimanimani conservation area is the result of financing from the French Development Agency (AFD) together with the French Fund for the World Environment (FFEM) and Fauna and Flora International (FFI), which, in September 2019 set up an initiative to support the Mozambican government in the implementation of a biodiversity conservation project in the Chimanimani National Park, and in its buffer zone due to recognition of the value of the biodiversity of this Conservation Area at national, regional and global level.