Modern-Day Noah’s Ark

Wildlife parks in Botswana and South Africa are conducting a modern-day Noah’s Ark operation to repopulate Angola’s wildlife parks, devastated by poaching after 27 years of civil war.

A military operation is to bring 200 elephants, leopards and antelopes from Botswana’s Tuli reserve and South Africa’s Madikwe National Park to Kissama Natural park, 70 kilometres south of Luanda, via Namibia, transported on the 17,000-tonne SS Outeniquia and then by road to their final destination, in special custom-built containers.

The operation will give Kissama a breath of life as Angola prepares personnel to begin working in tourism and leisure after the end of the civil war earlier this year. The operation was announced by the South African Defence Minister, Mosiuoa Lekota.

The Angolan Ambassador in Pretoria, Isaque Anjos, declared that “This action will accelerate the restoration of our national parks and will allow the creation of new jobs in the sectors of tourism and the protection of nature”.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru