Gorongosa: how Mozambique's great park is bringing its wildlife back
Once home to some of Africa's densest herds, the park in the Rift Valley has been rebuilding since 2004, with leopards, wild dogs and hyenas returning.
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Beira — Gorongosa National Park lies at the southern end of the Great African Rift Valley, in the heart of central Mozambique. Its more than 4,000 square kilometres take in the valley floor and surrounding plateaus, watered by rivers that start on Mount Gorongosa, 1,863 metres high.
Seasonal floods create a patchwork of grassland, acacia woodland, savannah, dry forest, rain-filled pans and termite-hill thickets, while the plateaus hold miombo and montane forest and a rainforest at the foot of limestone gorges. More than 500 bird species have been recorded.
A park full of life
In the late 1960s, the park's first aerial survey, led by director Armando Rosinha and ecologist Kenneth Tinley, counted about 200 lions, 2,200 elephants, 14,000 buffalo, 5,500 wildebeest, 3,000 zebras and 3,500 hippos. The populations of many large mammals later fell by more than 95% during the years of conflict that ended in 1992.
The comeback
In 2004, the Government of Mozambique and the US-based Carr Foundation agreed to work together to rebuild the park's infrastructure, restore its wildlife and support local economic development. In 2010 Mount Gorongosa was added to the park, protecting the source of the Vundudzi river on which people and animals depend.
Wildlife has been returning. In 2018 a park camera captured a leopard for the first time in 14 years, and more leopards were reintroduced from 2020. Two packs of African wild dogs arrived from South Africa in 2018 and 2019, and spotted hyenas followed in 2022. When Cyclone Idai struck in 2019, park rangers used their helicopter, boat and tractor in rescue missions for nearby communities.
Background: Wikipedia.
