Video

In the fall of 1995 just as the feasibility study’s expansion south began to unfold, New Orleans headquarters wanted a video made to showcase their Mozambique land development project at Jim’s big annual fall New Orleans Investment Conference. This resulted in a twenty minute `quickie-made-in-Mozambique’ production. Versions of this video were later used in Mozambique to brief GoM, especially the Council of Ministers faced with the decision of whether or not to eject SAPPI with their earlier `eucalyptus plantation’ concession vs. our late edition wildlife-ecotourism alternate-land-use-plan as a better choice, especially as one in line with safeguarding the UN’s late discovered CPD status of the region, vs. being despoiled by eucalyptus plantations. Some time later, eight minutes of helicopter fly over of the Elephant Coast development region turned up, and was tacked on the end of the original `for-New Orleans’ production, to make the full length video available herein some twenty seven to twenty eight minutes in length. There are some good images of the landscape, some of the animals of the region sprinkled throughout the video, but especially in the tail end helicopter flyover portion.

When viewing the video film as pertains to the discussions as to the project’s then scope, please remember this video was made in the fairly early feasibility study stages in the fall of 1995, when the expansion south from the original GoM offered Machangulo-Peninsula-only target (40,000 acres) to the eventual GoM awarded 585,000 acre 99 year land development lease or the then Elephant Coast 914 Sq Mi version (October 1996) was early in its evolution. The coming prolonged squabble over who got the land (the big south), eucalyptus or wildlife-ecotourism was then unknown, yet to unfold, and the UN Maputaland Center of Plant Diversity special status of the region was yet to be discovered by two months locally.

The main value of this somewhat outdated video is to provide some feel and appreciation for the exquisite diamond-in-the-rough raw real estate, pristine Indian Ocean coast, many lakes, Maputo River and the wonderful fairly open rolling wildlife watching terrain, while picking up some local Mozambique `color’.