Story

Working with the Community

April 27, 2007 | Pulitzer Center
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Greg Carr talks to the Vinho village about the park restoration effort while warden Roberto Zolho watches. They promise to help the villagers with a new health clinic and school, but ask that they stop poaching and setting wild fires.

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Carr gives a similar presentation in the Sadjungira community. There he asks villagers to allow tourists to walk on the mountain. Many of the villagers are suspicious, but others see the potential for jobs.

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The regulo - or chief - of Sadjungira blesses the Carr Foundation project in a ceremony summoning the ancestors.

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The guns, snares and traps of poachers, all collected by rangers in the Gorongosa National Park. Poaching is still a serious problem in the park.

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Alface Vernizo, a 36-year-old poacher, holds the snares and spear he was caught with in Gorongosa National Park.

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Deforestation and slash-and-burn agriculture threatens the ecosystem of Gorongosa National Park. Villagers, many of whom are subsistence farmers, clear the land for their fields. The park is working with community leaders to provide alternative jobs and income to the people who live around the park.

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The road from Beira to Gorongosa National Park. The fires burning around the park sometimes make their own weather systems.

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Julius Alfredo, 47 (on the right) buys a bag of charcoal next to Gorongosa National Park for $1.50. He can sell this bag in Beira for $4. Many of the trees around the park have been chopped and turned into charcoal.

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Noriasoe Nota, left is a national park ranger. He is over seeing a poacher, Pedro Almando, who digs a trench for electrical cabling at Chitengo Camp. Poachers caught in the park have to work off their sentence.

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Sorghum fields inside of Gorongosa National Park are planted by people who moved into the park during the war.

A main challenge of the Gorongosa project is convincing the people living around the park that cooperating will serve their interests. Poaching, deforestation and slash-and-burn agriculture still threaten the restoration efforts.