How an American philanthropist helped restore Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park (Interview)
As first appeared in Integrity Magazine, in Mozambique, here. Written by Omardine Omar.
March 23 2023
Eighteen years later, the park once devastated by war has thriving ecosystems and supports hundreds of livelihoods
When restoration efforts began in 2004, the park had less than ten lions, but the population has grown to over 200 since then.
Image by The Gorongosa Project.
Integrity Magazine reporter, Omardine Omar (OO) recently visited Gorongosa National Park as a fellow of the VukaNow African Conservation Journalism Program. He spoke to Greg Carr (GC), the philanthropist who, 18 years ago, began his investment in the process of restoring this jewel in Mozambique’s conservation story.
OO: Mr. Greg Carr, what does Gorongosa National Park mean to you?
GC: Just come and sit during a sunset by the lake, in the centre of this national park, that is, time stands still. And we can see a hundred yellow colours and a hundred orange colours, and then the twilight comes, and soon a flock of birds passes over the water. And there's a hippopotamus over there, making noise, and there's an impala over there. And do you know? It's like, "Well, I could have been here a hundred thousand years ago and it could have been the same.”
When I first arrived here in 2004, I could drive with my Mozambican friends all day and, if we were lucky, we might spot a dog monkey or warthog or something. Now we drive around and it's an ocean of wildlife. We turn a corner, there's a herd of elephants, you see? We go in the other direction, there are some lion cubs. Ten thousand waterless and I say to myself: “You know what? Nature can recover.”
OO: What was your first step in this process of restoring the Park?
GC: Well, as a first step, we had to remove more than 20,000 wire traps and mousetraps that were left in this park, leftovers from the war. We got rid of them all. Because when I got here, I think we had maybe five or six lions in four hundred thousand hectares. And the lions that we had, most of them had three legs because they had stepped into a trap or something, and secondly, some of the species just completely disappeared. So we started a process: first bring in the herbivores. So we brought in 200 buffalo. We brought 200 oxen-horses. We brought some zebras. And then, when we had enough herbivores, we wanted to bring the carnivores back. So we reintroduced leopards. We reintroduced the hyenas. The lions, alone, their numbers just grew exponentially. So from five or six lions when we started, we now have probably 200.
OO: And how did this process go during all these years?
GC: I never imagined it would go so well or so fast. In 2018, we did an aerial survey, you know, so just counting big animals // we counted 100,000 big animals from the air.
People had nothing. I mean, they didn't have clothes. They wore rags or had made clothes out of tree bark. They were eating bugs and trying to catch mice. And, you know, that's when I realised, well, this national park is going to have to help people.
Now we work in 89 primary schools, which are all schools that surround this national park. We are training 600 teachers right now. Now think how difficult it is to create a school system when you don't have teachers who can read and write because of generations of war. Now, something that we really focused on, as a first step, was really vulnerable girls. Now, many times what happens in poor families here, a girl turns 13 or 14 and the family says: “Well, it’s time for her to get married.” It might not even be what they really want, but they think there's no other choice. And that's what happens and she marries a farmer and that's it. So we started something called Girls' Clubs.
OO: Tell us about the people who live around the Park?
GC: This land belongs to these people. They've been here forever. It's your animals, it's your land, it's your trees, it's your cultural and spiritual heritage, right? It's an idea that came from my hero, Nelson Mandela. And the idea was to create a human rights park, you know. What does that mean? A park that cares about the people, a park that belongs to the people. So instead of a park turning its back on people, it's a park that opens up to people and says, “This is your park. These are your animals. These are your opportunities.
OO: What were your main obstacles in all these years?
GC: Little did I know then what would come...Okay, there was the six years war and then the cyclone. When Cyclone Idai hit this area, basically all of our employees became first responders. So in other words – oh, we have an elephant right there. I just think that whenever something like this happens, we become more determined, not less determined. And when you have people suffering in a war that need help or people suffering from a cyclone, they need help, you know, we are even more compromised. We cannot lose our commitment at times like these.
OO: How much of your personal fortune did you invest in this?
GC: I'd like to keep this a secret, but unfortunately, I think – you know, everyone could probably do the maths and find out, it's over $100 million dollars. My message to anyone with money is, I mean, what are you going to do, put it all in your casket? I mean, why not enjoy the joy of philanthropy? I would say to the billionaire next door, go out and spend your money to help some people. Word of advice: Go find your Gorongosa. And you will receive a blessing greater than the blessing you give.
This article is reproduced here as part of the African Conservation Journalism Programme, funded in Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe by USAID’s VukaNow: Activity. Implemented by the international conservation organisation Space for Giants, it aims to expand the reach of conservation and environmental journalism in Africa, and bring more African voices into the international conservation debate. Written articles from the Mozambican and Angolan cohorts are translated from Portuguese. Broadcast stories remain in the original language.
