Wetlands, Coastal Lakes, Inland Pools, Sand Shores and Dunes

Coastal wetlands were categorised as saline and brackish, adopting the Ramsar definition for freshwater wetlands, but not including mangroves and shallow seagrass and coral reef areas (these are covered by the other taxa groups). There was a general lack of information throughout the ecoregion for this group, with nine out of 18 areas barely known. Of the remaining nine sites, the Zambezi River Delta and Bazaruto-São Sebastio, were considered of global importance (see table below). The former is a very large complex of wetland, mangroves, savannah and grassland important for many species of threatened birds. Bazaruto-São Sebastio is a complex of very high sand dunes and coastal barrier lakes found only in Southern Mozambique in the Parabolic Dune sub-region. This area also has six species of bird that exceed 1% of the global population for the species. Four sites were of ecoregion importance with all areas having high wetland habitat diversity and importance for birds. The most northern site, Lamu-Tenewi also has important sand dune systems within a mosaic of wetlands. The remaining site, Maputoland was ascribed subregion importance with extensive marshes and flooded grasslands that support endemic fish species. There were two cross border sites: Ruvuma Dunes (Tanzania and Mozambique) and Maputoland (Mozambique and South Africa).

Summary of important wetlands, coastal lakes, inland pools, sand shores and dunes sites

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