Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

One of the important milestones in the co-operation between our three countries was the signing of the General Protocol on the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative in July last year by our Heads of State. The structures and procedures it established to ensure collaboration between all levels of our three governments included steps to create stable and co-operative governance in the region, as well as a number of trilateral protocols and programmes covering areas such as borders and access, health and malaria, conservation and maritime matters, and regional marketing.

Today we are gathered to sign another of the trilateral agreements envisaged in the General Lubombo SDI Protocol. This TFCA agreement (or to give it its full name, the Transfrontier Conservation and Resource Area Protocol) is the second of its kind to be signed in our region. It is part of a larger programme to establish conservation areas that stretch across the political boundaries of southern Africa.

The Lubombo TFCA agreement records a number of transfrontier conservation and resource area objectives. These include the establishment of a mechanism -- to be known as the TFCA Commission -- for joint review, supervision, and decision-making. It also includes the strengthening of existing initiatives in the Lubombo Region and the creation of an enabling framework to assist such initiatives.

Crucially, the protocol commits the three countries to the development of joint strategies for the planning and management of specific areas extending across the borders between our three countries. Four such areas have been targeted; including a marine zone stretching between Ponta do Ouro and Kosi Bay. This area extends into the newly proclaimed St Lucia Wetlands World Heritage Site and will, amongst other things, entrench the protection of rare tropical reefs.

Ndumo/Tembe/Futi has long been regarded as an area of high conservation and tourism value. Its importance as a centre of biodiversity and its great tourism potential have however been constrained by many factors, including the hard political boundary that divides it. The agreement that we are signing today will turn this around. It will lead not only to the freeing the Tembe elephants so that they will once again roam across their ancestral range; it will also create a resource area that benefits people on both sides of the border through increased economic activity.

The Nsubane/Pongola and Goba transfrontier regions, between South Africa and Swaziland, and Mozambique and Swaziland respectively, are likewise designed to create new transfrontier resource areas that make sense from a conservation and an economic perspective.

These area-specific agreements do more than just record objectives. They also create task groups to develop the implementation programmes necessary to convert the plans into action on the ground.

It is obvious that the Lubombo TFCA protocol has positive implications for conservation. It envisages, and puts into place, the practical mechanisms needed to achieve new transfrontier conservation areas that are planned and managed as ecological zones unfettered by political boundaries.

But this protocol is not just about conservation. Its name -- which combines an emphasis on conservation with the establishment of resource areas -- indicates that it is also about development. The agreement that we will sign today is another intervention designed to promote investment in the Lubombo region.

It again brings into focus the interdependence of our countries and the increased possibilities created through joint action. It sets a framework for general co-operation in the field of conservation. And it puts into place a road map for the joint management, development and future integration of the very resource on which the Lubombo's tourist industry rests. As such, it is another step along the way to the realisation of our dream of a prosperous Lubombo region capable of providing a life of dignity to all its people.

I thank you.