While conservation efforts have been significantly up-scaled in Mozambique since the end of the civil war in 1992, there are several threats affecting biodiversity. Significant increase in wildlife crime has taken place, adding to the pressures caused by uncontrolled subsistence hunting by poor communities. Since 2014, poaching has increased, targeting not only elephants but additional threatened species, such as lions, pangolins and other. The international market for wildlife products is still of low risk and highly profitable. Subsistence poaching also threatens a wide variety of globally endangered species. With local communities expanding further into conservation areas and growing populations in need of food and income, the threats to wildlife and forest resources accelerate at alarming rates, nullifying conservation gains of recent years. The proposed project Objective is to strengthen the conservation of globally threatened species in Mozambique through implementation of the Conservation Areas Act, by improving biodiversity enforcement and expanding protected areas through community conservancies and targeted rural development action. The project Objective will be achieved through achievement of three technical project Outcomes. Outcome 1: National strategy implemented to promote the value of wildlife and biodiversity for Mozambique's national development and to combat illegal wildlife trafficking through a coordinated approach will establish new level of coordination between a range of governmental agencies to fight IWT and poaching. The recently created MITADER, led through ANAC, will play a leading role in the multi-agency effort to promote compliance with national legislation and CITES. A national wildlife crime enforcement unit will be supported at ANAC to coordinate national IWT combat. Outcome 2: Wildlife crime is combated on the ground through strengthening enforcement operations in targeted protected area complexes as a result of a joint management efforts between ANAC and GRP in Gorongosa NP and between ANAC and WCS in Niassa Reserve, two national Protected Areas (PA) which combined comprise 52,000 km2 estate for the conservation of flora and fauna of significant international importance. Four territorial law enforcement sectors in Gorongosa NP will be capacitated and supported by enforcement monitoring system. Enforcement teams in Niassa Reserve will also be strengthened. Outcome 3: Three new Community Conservancies are created in terms of the Conservation Act, effectively expanding Gorongosa National Park as well as relevant community-management arrangements are officially established in the Niassa National Reserve will result in expansion of community-based conservation area by 131,000 ha around Gorongosa NP, and establishment of community co-management in Mecula-Marrupa Corridor in the Niassa Reserve. Lessons learned from the project, including gender mainstreaming, will be made available to facilitate IWT fight (Outcome 4). This project forms part of the GEF Programmatic Approach to Prevent the Extinction of Known Threatened Species, and falls under the GEF Programme Global Partnership on Wildlife Conservation and Crime Prevention For Sustainable Development (9071). Under this programmatic framework, with the coordination through the programme steering committee, coordinated knowledge management and cross-fertilisation of the individual regional and national projects will be assured.Note that the project is implemented through three IPs: the National Administration for Conservation Areas (ANAC), Gorongosa Restoration Project (GRP) in Gorongosa NP, and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Niassa.