Writer Wilbur Smith is set to open a new £650,000 African species house at Marwell Zoological Park near Winchester in the UK on 4 April.

The 3,000sq m (280sq ft) Heart of Africa enclosure will house a Congo buffalo, an African forest antelope known as a bongo, two Nile monitors, six pottos – African primates – and an aquarium with exotic fish from Lake Malawi.

Smith will also inaugurate the zoo’s new raised walkway leading to the giraffe paddock.

He is also a patron of ‘Back to Africa’, a charity which relocates rare and endangered African species from zoological institutiions worldwide to their natural habitats. Details: www.marwell.org.uk

Photograph: The new house will be home to an African forest antelope known as a Bongo.