Project

Mozambique: Paradise Lost, and Found?

Before the Mozambican civil war, Gorongosa National Park was among the top destinations in Africa, with a higher concentration of animals than on the famed Serengeti Plain. But during the war, soldiers and other poachers killed these vast herds, planted landmines and destroyed the park's infrastructure. By the 1990s, the park was all but abandoned. During their reporting of a multi-country series about environment and conflict, reporter Stephanie Hanes and photographer Jeff Barbee heard about an American philanthropist, Greg Carr, who was trying to revitalize Gorongosa.

The park, Carr believed, was the key to lifting this beleaguered region out of poverty. For months, Hanes and Barbee reported on Carr and Gorongosa, looking at the intersection of human rights, environmental preservation and economic development

March 26, 2007 | Pulitzer Center

Gorongosa Day 2

Stephanie Hanes and Stephen Sapienza, for the Pulitzer Center
Gorongosa, Mozambique

Today we met Tendai Loja, a man cutting grass with a big machete in Gorongosa's Chitengo camp. He used to be a poacher – the boss of a group of villagers who would go into the park and snare protected animals, which they would sell at local markets. But he was arrested after some of his colleagues ratted him out, and he was sentenced to six months of manual labor in the park.

February 20, 2007 | Pulitzer Center

Gorongosa: Rich in Biodiversity

Although most of the animals are gone, Gorongosa is still rich in biodiversity. The park sits at the end of the Great Rift Valley, in the trough between the Cheringoma Escarpment and the long, flat-topped Gorongosa Mountain.