Morocco Launches New Ecotourism Project in Tafoughalt, Oriental Region
With a budget of MAD 10 million ($980,437), this project will generate 20 direct employment and 30 indirect jobs.
Casablanca – The territorial municipality of Tafoughalt, a small town in the province of Berkane in Morocco’s Oriental region, launched on Saturday an ecotourism project to capitalize on its wealth of tourist attractions.
Attending the launching ceremony was Mohammed Sadiki, Morocco’s Minister for Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, Rural Development, Water and Forests.
As part of Morocco’s Forests Strategy, the ecotourism project will be carried out in a public-private partnership, through an agreement between the Association of the rural family house of Beni Snassen and the Regional Directorate of the National Agency for Water and Forests.
The project will offer a significant push to ecotourism in the region, creating 20 direct employment and 30 indirect jobs with a MAD 10 million ($980,437) investment and installation on an area of 2.5 hectares, the ministry said in a statement.
The project also has a training dimension, with the goal being to support young people, as well as local organizations and cooperatives in the development of agricultural and forestry goods, added the ministry’s statement.
Its main goal is to safeguard endangered species, develop environmental awareness, promote and diversify sporting activities, and diversify the local population’s economic sources. Its completion will enhance the Oriental region’s natural, cultural, and historical treasures, noted the statement.
The Tafoughalt ecotourism project comes to boost Morocco’s Forests 2020-2030 plan, which aims to improve the North African country’s forest areas and strengthen their productive capacity, protect biodiversity, generate direct jobs, and raise the annual revenues generated by Moroccan tourism.
Morocco’s Department of Water and Forests intends to grow 460 million plants by 2030, with the private sector eventually taking over 54 of its forest species nurseries.
