It is located to the south of Mtwara town in southern Tanzania, including the last 45 kilometres of coastline to the Ruvuma River forming the boarder with Mozambique.
The Park covers 650 square kilometers {162,500 acres or 65,000 hectares} and includes the northern portion of the Ruvuma Estuary, Mnazi Bay to the headland of Ras Msangamkuu. Within the Park boundaries there are three islands namely Namponda, Membelwa {or Mongo} and Kisiwa Kidogo and numerous small rocky islets.
The Government and people of Mtwara region chose this area for development under the status of Marine Park for a number of reasons. These include; the area contains good representative examples of all the marine habitats found along the shores of Eastern Africa, it has highly productive and diverse fisheries that are important for the residents; it holds promise for coastal tourism and has reserves of gas. The Park was gazetted in 2000 and is the second marine park in Tanzania formed under the Marine Parks and Reserves Act, 1994. A recent analysis of the whole Eastern Africa Region conducted by WWF and others concluded that the Park area and neighbouring northern Mozambique form a site of global importance in terms of marine biodiversity.
The MBREMP is unique for having a high ratio of dry land. It is the highest in East Africa. In fact, when looking at the majority of marine parks around the world, the terrestrial boundary usually only extends to the high- water mark and MPA managers are often hampered in their efforts in that they tend not to have jurisdiction over land-based activities that can have a significant impact of marine resources. The rationale behind incorporating such a wide area of land into the Park was to constitute a buffer zone and control human activities that impact the protected marine environment. The aim was also to ensure that local marine resource users would be included in the management and planning processes as required by Marine Parks and Reserve Act {1994}. Thus the park includes in its boundaries 11 villages, 8 sub-villages and a population of approximately 30,000 people. Biophysical assessments of the area have shown that the marine environment is highly impacted by human activities, particularly by over fishing, destructive fishing and coral mining {Guard et al 1998, UNDP/GEF,2000, Guard 2004, Malleret 2004, Labrosse et al 2005} and mangrove forests already bear the mark of anthropogenic use {Wagner et al.,2004}.
MBREMP is thus distinguished by several characteristics that set it apart from other marine parks as the land area represents 33% of the park. The importance of the community participation and involvement is probably among the highest compared to any other marine park around the world.
