Mozambique - Maputo National Park (formerly Ponto d’ Ouro Partial Marine Reserve - POPMR)

The site: Maputo National Park (MNP) is located on the south-eastern coast of Maputo Province in the Matutuíne District of southern Mozambique. The MNP was established on 31 December 2021, consolidating the existing Ponta do Ouro Partial Marine Reserve and the Maputo Special Reserve. The MNP is being put forward for inclusion on the Tentative List as an extension to the iSimangaliso Wetland Park in South Africa, which was declared a World Heritage site in 1999. This submission replaces the prior one made by the Mozambique government in August 2008 to include the Ponta do Ouro Partial Marine Reserve.

The MNP extends from Ponta do Ouro in the south, at the border with the iSimangaliso Wetland Park (a World Heritage Site) in South Africa, around the northern tip of Inhaca Island to the Maputo River mouth in Maputo Bay. The park extends from the high-water mark to three nautical miles into the Indian Ocean and one nautical mile into the interior of Maputo Bay, including the surrounding waters of Inhaca and Portuguese Islands (DNAC, 2011). The terrestrial component of park (formerly the Maputo Special Reserve) is bordered by Maputo Bay in the north, the Indian Ocean in the east, the Maputo River, the Fúti River and a line two km east of the Salamanga – Ponta do Ouro road in the west, and the southern tips of Lake Xingute and Lake Piti (DNAC, 2009).