CONTRIBUTION
The devastating civil war that engulfed Mozambique for fifteen years (1977-1992) had its collateral victims in the wildlife of Gorongosa National Park. So much so that the first post-conflict aerial census conducted in 1994 confirmed the loss of 90-99 percent of its large mammal populations, including elephants, buffalo, hippopotamuses and zebras. Today, thanks to the work done by the Gorongosa Restoration Project, the Mozambican park has recovered much of its ecological integrity. It is for the extraordinary results of its actions in defense of nature that the project has been distinguished with the Worldwide Award for Biodiversity Conservation.
When the Mozambican civil war broke out in the late 1970s, after the country had secured its independence from Portugal, large extensions of the Gorongosa ecosystem were caught up in the conflict, which ended with almost one million people dead and millions more driven from their homes. In the fifteen years the war lasted, fighters often took refuge in the park – a terrain occupying over 1,300,000 hectares – where they would kill the animals for food or profit. The sale of elephant tusks, for instance, became a way of financing military operations. Moreover, the end of the war meant only a partial respite for the wildlife of Gorongosa, since its economic impact and resulting political instability made the whole area fertile ground for poachers.
“When we started out two decades ago, there were fewer than 10,000 large animals in the park. Now there are more than 100,000, so we have grown their numbers by a factor of ten,” says the project’s Scientific Director Marc Stalmans.
This success owes to the alliance forged in 2008 between a private foundation, created by American philanthropist Greg Carr, and the Mozambican government with the aim of restoring Gorongosa National Park. The main instruments to achieve this have been the strict protection of wildlife through surveillance by an extensive ranger network, and a reintroduction program for a series of species, among them buffalo, leopards, hyenas, wild dogs and wildebeest, that had practically disappeared from the terrain.
“In the most serious cases, we have secured excellent results with species reintroduction, but others have managed to recover on their own. If you give nature a chance, with good protection, it can rebound spectacularly,” Stalman remarks.
The elephant population, for example, was literally decimated by the civil war. In 1972 the park harbored some 2,500 animals, but by the time it was over their numbers had shrunk to fewer than 200 heads. Nowadays, however, the population sums more than 800 individuals, almost four times as many. In the case of lions, when the project began fewer than 30 animals remained in Gorongosa, but their numbers are now up to 200 plus. The buffalo population too has rebounded from under 100 to more than 1,900; and that of hippopotamuses from fewer than 100 to over 1,100.
Other success stories include the reintroduction programs for antelopes, now up to more than 65,000 after dropping to a post-war total of fewer than 1,000; wildebeest, which had practically disappeared and now number more than 1,500; and African wild dogs, which are back to over 200 individuals after having vanished from the face of the park. Additionally, leopards and hyenas, two other emblematic species wiped out in the area, have been successfully reintroduced in recent years.
In parallel, the project has sought to ground its conservation strategies on robust science by promoting research on Gorongosa’s extraordinary biodiversity. This was the goal behind the creation of the Edward O. Wilson Laboratory, named after the renowned Harvard Professor of Entomology and 2011 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Laureate in Ecology and Conservation Biology. “The wildlands in which these ecosystems flourish gave birth to humanity, and it is this natural world, still evolving, that may outlast us and become our legacy, our window on eternity,” wrote Wilson after his three visits to the Mozambican park between the years 2011 and 2014. The awe the U.S. scientist felt at the beauty of the area’s restored nature inspired him to write a book titled precisely A Window on Eternity: A Biologist’s Walk through Gorongosa National Park.
“Wilson encouraged the study of wildlife in the park and has been a great source of inspiration for the science we do today,” says Stalmans. The research program has documented the existence of almost 8,000 species within the bounds of the park, of which some 200 were previously unknown to science. “Most of them are insects,” observes the project’s Scientific Director, “but we also discovered three new bat species, a new gecko, and several varieties of plants.”
Researchers at the E. O. Wilson Laboratory also extract and store samples of park species’ DNA, the aim being to draw up an exhaustive inventory of Gorongosa’s biodiversity that can serve as a route map for ecosystem restoration. The facility has an advanced data management and specimen tracking system, including physical barcoding of individuals. “Thanks to this rigorous research work,” says Stalmans, “Gorongosa is now one of the best documented national parks in Africa in terms of biodiversity.”
Another success of the Gorongosa Restoration Project highlighted by the jury has been the active involvement of the local Mozambican community. This was achieved by the dual means of recruiting young people to its wildlife ranger network and the launch of an ambitious human development program that ensures access to basic amenities like safe drinking water, healthcare, and decent housing, as well as switching land to sustainable crops like coffee, providing jobs for over 1,000 people.
Stalmans offers some further examples. “We support local health services by supplying the logistics so doctors and nurses can set up mobile clinics in remote areas. We also run environmental and nutritional education programs and are working to get more people into regenerative agriculture, using techniques that not only improve crop yields but make their farming more sustainable.”
In fact, over 50 percent of the project’s budget goes on social and economic development projects benefitting more than 200,000 Mozambicans. Much of this effort is directed at girls’ education, primarily at the secondary school stage, as the number of years they spend in study impacts directly on such life milestones as their age at first birth, the number of children they have and, ultimately, the control they have over their own futures.
“Girls’ education is absolutely at the heart of our project,” Stalmans insists. “The idea is to encourage them to stay in school, because early drop-out is a huge problem in poor rural areas. When girls leave school early, they end up marrying young and can never develop their potential.”
Still on the education side, the creation of a master’s program in Conservation Biology for Mozambican students is creating new, high-level technical jobs for citizens throughout the country, preparing a new generation of conservation experts in this land of extraordinary natural wealth.
“An essential part of our work is to improve the lives of people living around the park,” explains Stalmans, ”because many of the problems of overexploitation of natural resources that threaten biodiversity are due to poverty and lack of knowledge. Our focus on the economic development and education of local communities is a key factor in any success we have achieved. Hopefully our model integrating conservation and sustainability with the socioeconomic development of the population can serve as an inspiration for other African countries, as the award jury remarked.”