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Related Information:

Dugongs and Sustainable Development A Journalist's Briefing by WWF



WWF And Swatch Form Timely Conservation Partnership For Island Wildlife In Mozambique Channel

March 17, 1998

Project Biologist Paula Afonso monitors harvest of sand oysters with the help of a school boy. 
Bazaruto National Park, Mozambique

Gland, Switzerland --WWF-World Wide Fund For Nature and Swatch are teaming up for conservation in the Bazaruto Archipelago in Mozambique, WWF announced today. Proceeds from a new Swatch watch will benefit conservation of whales, highly threatened dugongs and other wildlife in the Archipelago, a spectacular Indian Ocean island chain.

Proceeds from the  Swatch Expo '98 Watch, specially designed for the Expo '98, and launched in Lisbon, Portugal today, will  benefit WWF's Bazaruto Archipelago project as part of the United Nation's International Year of the Ocean and Expo '98.

"Time is indeed ticking away for the threatened dugongs and other unique marine species of Bazaruto," said Dr Claude Martin, Director-General of WWF-International. "The  proceeds from this watch will give WWF the financial backing to continue nearly a decade of conservation work with local island communities, and push forward plans for  full National Park status for the entire island chain."

Each Swatch Expo '98 Watch will contain a microchip allowing purchasers entry to the Expo and access to interactive games in the Swatch pavilion. For each of the special watches sold, Swatch will donate two US dollars to the Bazaruto project. 

The Bazaruto Archipelago is a string of five, small islands off the eastern shores of Mozambique.  The waters surrounding the islands are home to more than 80 percent of all marine fish families of the Indo-Pacific. Resident minke and right whales ply surrounding seas, as well as common, spinner and bottlenose dolphins, and the highly-threatened dugong.

The Archipelago, neighbour to years of civil strife in nearby Mozambique, is today struggling to replace environmentally damaging fishing and farming techniques with sustainable ways of managing its marine and terrestrial resources.  Unregulated tourism development, slash-and-burn agriculture on unstable sand dunes, excessive grazing and over-exploitation of certain fisheries is threatening the fragile ecosystem. Industrial trawlers put additional pressure on the local resources.

WWF in association with the Mozambican Wildlife Department in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, and other conservation groups such as the Endangered Wildlife Trust, is working to manage tourism development, encourage sustainable fishing, and promote the entire island chain as a National Park.

CONTACT:
Janet Friedli, WWF- International, Tel. +41 22 364 9316 (or)

Elizabeth Foley, WWF-International, Tel. +41 22 364 9554

WWF is known as World Wildlife Fund in Canada and the United States.