Gorongosa National Park is at the southern end of the Great African Rift Valley in the heart of central Mozambique, Southeast Africa. The more than 4,000 km2 (1,500 sq mi) park comprises the valley floor and parts of surrounding plateaus. Rivers originating on nearby Mount Gorongosa at 1,863 m (6,112 ft) water the plain. Seasonal flooding and waterlogging of the valley, which is composed of a mosaic of soil types, creates a variety of distinct ecosystems. Grasslands are dotted with patches of acacia trees, savannah, dry forest on sands and seasonally rain-filled pans, and termite hill thickets. The plateaus contain miombo and montane forests and a spectacular rain forest at the base of a series of limestone gorges. This combination of unique features at one time supported some of the densest wildlife populations in all of Africa, including charismatic carnivores, herbivores, and over 500 bird species. But large mammal numbers were reduced by as much as 95% and ecosystems were stressed during the Mozambican Civil War (1977-1992). The Carr Foundation has teamed with the Government of Mozambique to protect and restore the ecosystem of Gorongosa National Park and to develop an ecotourism industry to benefit local communities.
History
Hunting reserve: 1920–1959 The first official act to protect the Gorongosa region, Portuguese Mozambique, came in 1920 when the Mozambique Company ordered 1,000 square km set aside as a hunting reserve for company administrators and their guests. Chartered by the government of Portugal, the Mozambique Company controlled all of central Mozambique between 1891 and 1940. In 1935, Mr. Jose Henriques Coimbra was named warden and Jose Ferreira became the reserve's first guide. That same year the Mozambique Company enlarged the reserve to 3,200 square km to protect habitat for nyala and black rhino, both highly prized hunting trophies. By 1940 the reserve had become so popular that a new headquarters and tourist camp was built on the floodplain near the Mussicadzi River. It was abandoned two years later due to heavy flooding in the rainy season. Lions then occupied the abandoned building and it became a popular tourist attraction for many years, known as Casa dos Leões (Lion House).
National park: 1960–1980
Many improvements to the new park's trails, roads, and buildings ensued. Between 1963 and 1965 Chitengo camp was expanded to accommodate 100 overnight guests. By the late 1960s, it had two swimming pools, a bar and banquet hall, a restaurant serving 300-400 meals a day, a post office, a petrol station, a first-aid clinic, and a shop selling local handicrafts. The late 1960s also saw the first comprehensive scientific studies of the park, led by Armando Rosinha, Director of Gorongosa, and Kenneth Tinley, an Australian ecologist. In the first-ever aerial survey, Tinley and his team counted about 200 lions, 2,200 elephants, 14,000 African buffalo, 5,500 wildebeest, 3,000 zebras, 3,500 waterbuck, 2,000 impala, 3,500 hippos, and herds of eland, sable antelope and hartebeest numbering more than 500. Tinley also discovered that many people and most of the wildlife living in and around the park depended on one river, the Vundudzi, which originated on the slopes of the nearby Mount Gorongosa. Because the mountain was outside the park's boundaries, Tinley proposed expanding them to include it as a key element in a "Greater Gorongosa Ecosystem" of about 8,200 square kilometers. He and other scientists and conservationists were disappointed in 1966 when the government reduced the park's area to 3,770 square kilometers. Meanwhile, Mozambique was in the midst of a war for independence launched in 1964 by the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo). Fortunately, the war had little impact on Gorongosa National Park until 1972, when a Portuguese company and members of the Provincial Volunteer Organization were stationed there to protect it. Even then, not much damage occurred, although some soldiers hunted illegally. In 1974, the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon overthrew the Estado Novo regime. When the new Portuguese authorities decided to abdicate power in their overseas territories, Mozambique became an independent republic. In 1976, a year after Mozambique won its independence from Portugal, aerial surveys of the park and adjacent Zambezi River delta counted thousands of elephants in the region and a healthy population of lions, numbering in the hundreds. It was the largest lion population recorded in the greater Gorongosa region to date.
Civil war: 1981–1994
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