Gorongosa National Park
Encyclopedia
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
. The 3,770 square kilometer park includes the valley floor and parts of surrounding plateau
Plateau
In geology and earth science, a plateau , also called a high plain or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting of relatively flat terrain. A highly eroded plateau is called a dissected plateau...
s. Rivers originating on nearby 1863-meter Mount Gorongosa water the plain.
Seasonal flooding and waterlogging of the valley, which is composed of a mosaic of different soil types, creates a variety of distinct ecosystems. Grasslands are dotted with patches of acacia trees, savannah
Savannah
Savannah or savanna is a type of grassland.It can also mean:-People:* Savannah King, a Canadian freestyle swimmer* Savannah Outen, a singer who gained popularity on You Tube...
, dry forest on sands and seasonally rain-filled pans and termite hill thickets. The plateaus contain miombo
Miombo
Miombo is the Swahili word for Brachystegia, a genus of tree comprising a large number of species. Miombo woodland is classified in the tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome...
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 carnivore
Carnivore
A carnivore meaning 'meat eater' is an organism that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of animal tissue, whether through predation or scavenging...
s, herbivore
Herbivore
Herbivores are organisms that are anatomically and physiologically adapted to eat plant-based foods. Herbivory is a form of consumption in which an organism principally eats autotrophs such as plants, algae and photosynthesizing bacteria. More generally, organisms that feed on autotrophs in...
s and over 500 bird species. But large mammal numbers were reduced by as much as 95% and ecosystems stressed during Mozambique's long civil conflict at the end of the 20th century.
The Carr Foundation/Gorongosa Restoration Project, a U.S. not-for-profit organization, has teamed with the Government of Mozambique to protect and restore the ecosystem of Gorongosa National Park and to develop an ecotourism
Ecotourism
Ecotourism is a form of tourism visiting fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas, intended as a low impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial tourism...
industry to benefit local communities.
Hunting Reserve: 1920-1959
The first official act to protect the Gorongosa region, Portuguese Mozambique, came in 1920, when the Mozambique CompanyMozambique Company
The Mozambique Company, in Portuguese the Companhia de Moçambique, was a royal company in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, that had the concession of the lands that include the present provinces of Manica and Sofala....
ordered 1,000 square kilometers set aside as a hunting reserve for company administrators and their guests. Chartered by the government of Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, the Mozambique Company
Mozambique Company
The Mozambique Company, in Portuguese the Companhia de Moçambique, was a royal company in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, that had the concession of the lands that include the present provinces of Manica and Sofala....
controlled all of central Mozambique
Portuguese East Africa
Mozambique or Portuguese East Africa was the common name by which the Portuguese Empire's territorial expansion in East Africa was known across different periods of time...
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 kilometers to protect habitat for Nyala
Nyala
The Nyala is a Southern African antelope. It is a spiral-horned dense-forest antelope that is uncomfortable in open spaces and is most often seen at water holes. Nyalas live alone or in small family groups of up to 10 individuals.The male stands up to 110 cm , the female is up to 90 cm ...
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. Unfortunately, it had to be abandoned two years later due to heavy flooding in the rainy season. Lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
s then occupied the abandoned building and it became a popular tourist attraction for many years, known as Casa dos Leões (Lion House).
After the Mozambique Company's charter ended, management of the reserve was transferred to the colonial government. Alfredo Rodriques was appointed Warden, replacing Jose Coimbra. Over the next 14 years Rodrigues initiated the first steps towards banning hunting and establishing a viable tourism business. In 1951 construction began on a new headquarters and other facilities at Chitengo camp, including a restaurant and bar. By the end of the 1950s more than 6,000 tourists were visiting annually and the colonial government had awarded the first tourism concession in the park. In 1955 the Veterinary and Animal Industry Services division of the colonial government assumed control of all wildlife management in Mozambique, including Gorongosa. Gorongosa was named a national park
National park
A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or...
by the Government of Portugal
Government of Portugal
The Government is one of the four sovereignty organs of the Portuguese Republic. It is also the organ that conducts politics in general in the country and is also the superior body in public administration...
in 1960.
National Park: 1960-1980
The late 1960s also saw the first comprehensive scientific studies of the Park, led by Kenneth Tinley, an Australian ecologist. In the first-ever aerial survey, Tinley and his team counted about 200 lions, 2,200 elephants, 14,000 buffalo
African Buffalo
The African buffalo, affalo, nyati, Mbogo or Cape buffalo is a large African bovine. It is not closely related to the slightly larger wild Asian water buffalo, but its ancestry remains unclear...
, 5,500 wildebeest
Wildebeest
The wildebeest , also called the gnu is an antelope of the genus Connochaetes. It is a hooved mammal...
, 3,000 zebras, 3,500 waterbuck
Waterbuck
The Waterbuck is a large antelope found widely in Sub-Saharan Africa.Waterbuck stand at the shoulder. Males weigh and females . Their coats are reddish brown in colour and become progressively darker with age; they have a white 'bib' under their throats and white on their rumps...
, 2,000 impala
Impala
An impala is a medium-sized African antelope. The name impala comes from the Zulu language meaning "gazelle"...
, 3,500 hippos
Hippos
Hippos is an archaeological site in Israel, located on a hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Between the 3rd century BC and the 7th century AD, Hippos was the site of a Greco-Roman city. Besides the fortified city itself, Hippos controlled two port facilities on the lake and an area of the...
, and herds of eland
Common Eland
The common eland , also known as the southern eland or eland antelope, is a savannah and plains antelope found in East and Southern Africa. It is the largest antelope in the African continent...
, sable
Sable
The sable is a species of marten which inhabits forest environments, primarily in Russia from the Ural Mountains throughout Siberia, in northern Mongolia and China and on Hokkaidō in Japan. Its range in the wild originally extended through European Russia to Poland and Scandinavia...
and hartebeest
Hartebeest
The hartebeest is a grassland antelope found in West Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa. It is one of the three species classified in the genus Alcelaphus....
numbering more than five hundred.
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 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 had been 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
Carnation Revolution
The Carnation Revolution , also referred to as the 25 de Abril , was a military coup started on 25 April 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, coupled with an unanticipated and extensive campaign of civil resistance...
in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
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 6,000 elephants and about 500 lions.
Civil War: 1981-1994
People's Republic of Mozambique
The People's Republic of Mozambique , was a self-declared socialist state that lasted from June 25, 1975 through December 1, 1990, becoming the present day Republic of Mozambique.After gaining independence from Portugal in 1975, the People's Republic of Mozambique was established shortly...
, under the leadership of Samora Machel
Samora Machel
Samora Moisés Machel was a Mozambican military commander, revolutionary socialist leader and eventual President of Mozambique...
declared itself a Marxist-Leninist government. Threatened by FRELIMO's new pro-socialist government in Mozambique, neighboring Rhodesia
Rhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
and South Africa began arming and supplying a rebel army to destabilize it. Once Rhodesia became Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
in 1980, direct support for RENAMO came from South Africa with the intention of destabilizing Machel's government. Initially dismissed by Machel as a group of "armed bandits", RENAMO's war of destabilization developed into a full-scale national threat by 1981. In December 1981 the Mozambican National Resistance
Mozambican National Resistance
The Mozambican National Resistance is a conservative political party in Mozambique led by Afonso Dhlakama. It fought against the FRELIMO in the Mozambican Civil War and against the ZANU movement led by Robert Mugabe from 1975 to 1992....
(MNR, or RENAMO) fighters attacked the Chitengo campsite and kidnapped several staff, including two foreign scientists. The Mozambican Civil War
Mozambican Civil War
The Mozambican Civil War began in 1977, two years after the end of the war of independence. The ruling party, Front for Liberation of Mozambique , was violently opposed from 1977 by the Rhodesian- and South African-funded Mozambique Resistance Movement...
lasted from 1977 to 1994.
The violence increased in and around the Park after that. In 1983 the park was shut down and abandoned. For the next nine years Gorongosa was the scene of frequent battles between opposing forces. Fierce hand-to-hand fighting and aerial bombing destroyed buildings and roads. The park's large mammals suffered terrible losses. Both sides in the conflict slaughtered hundreds of elephants for their ivory, selling it to buy arms and supplies. Hungry soldiers shot many more thousands of zebras, wildebeest
Wildebeest
The wildebeest , also called the gnu is an antelope of the genus Connochaetes. It is a hooved mammal...
, buffalos
African Buffalo
The African buffalo, affalo, nyati, Mbogo or Cape buffalo is a large African bovine. It is not closely related to the slightly larger wild Asian water buffalo, but its ancestry remains unclear...
, and other ungulates. Lions and other large predators were gunned down for sport or died of starvation when their prey disappeared.
A cease-fire agreement ended the civil war in 1992 but widespread hunting in the park continued for at least two more years. By that time many large mammal populations—including elephants, hippos
Hippos
Hippos is an archaeological site in Israel, located on a hill overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Between the 3rd century BC and the 7th century AD, Hippos was the site of a Greco-Roman city. Besides the fortified city itself, Hippos controlled two port facilities on the lake and an area of the...
, buffalos
African Buffalo
The African buffalo, affalo, nyati, Mbogo or Cape buffalo is a large African bovine. It is not closely related to the slightly larger wild Asian water buffalo, but its ancestry remains unclear...
, zebras, and lions had been reduced by 90 percent or more. Surveys counted just 15 buffalo, 5 zebra, 6 lions, 100 hippos, 300 elephants and just a handful of wildebeest. Fortunately, the park's spectacular birdlife emerged relatively unscathed.
Post-war: 1995-2003
A preliminary effort to rebuild Gorongosa National Park's infrastructure and restore its wildlife began in 1994 when the African Development BankAfrican Development Bank
The African Development Bank Group is a development bank established in 1964 with the intention of promoting economic and social development in Africa...
(ADB) started work on a rehabilitation plan with assistance from the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Fifty new staff were hired, most of them former soldiers. Baldeu Chande and Roberto Zolho, both employed by the Park before the Civil War, returned to take leadership positions. Chande was director of the emergency program and Zolho was wildlife coordinator and warden. Over a five-year period this ADB
African Development Bank
The African Development Bank Group is a development bank established in 1964 with the intention of promoting economic and social development in Africa...
initiative reopened about 100 kilometers of roads and trails and trained guards to slow illegal hunting.
Restoration: 2004-present
In 2004 the Government of Mozambique and the US-based Carr Foundation agreed to work together to rebuild the park's infrastructure, restore its wildlife populations and spur local economic development—opening an important new chapter in the park's history.Between 2004 and 2007 the Carr Foundation invested more than $10 million in this effort. During that time the restoration project team completed a 60 square kilometres (23.2 sq mi) wildlife sanctuary and reintroduced buffalos
African Buffalo
The African buffalo, affalo, nyati, Mbogo or Cape buffalo is a large African bovine. It is not closely related to the slightly larger wild Asian water buffalo, but its ancestry remains unclear...
and wildebeests to the ecosystem. They also began the reconstruction of Chitengo Safari Camp.
Due to the success of this initial three-year project, the Government of Mozambique and the Carr Foundation announced in 2008 that they had signed a 20-year agreement to restore and co-manage the park. Several thousand visitors now enter the park each year, most staying overnight at Chitengo Safari Camp. Some of these visitors go to see the progress being made in the restoration project, and many others are seeing the park for the first time. The park is open from 6 AM to 6 PM.
In 2009 the first private ecotourism venture started in the park. Explore Gorongosa is a unique safari experience based from a seasonal luxury tented camp. Guests can take guided game and birding walks, night drives, and play an exclusive part in the park's visionary Restoration Project.
Geology
The Park is nestled in a 4,000-square-kilometer section of the Great African Rift Valley system, Africa's most dramatic geological feature. The Rift extends from EthiopiaEthiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
to central Mozambique. Massive tectonic shifts
Plate tectonics
Plate tectonics is a scientific theory that describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere...
began forming the Rift about 30 million years ago. Other warpings, uplifts, and sinkings of the Earth's crust over millennia shaped the plateaus on both sides and the mountain to the west. Mozambique's tropical savanna
Savanna
A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...
climate, with an annual cycle of wet and dry seasons, has added yet another factor to the complex equation: constant change in soil moisture that varies with elevation. The valley is located 21 kilometers west of Mount Gorongosa at 14 meters above sea level.
Hydrology
Lake Urema is located in the middle of the valley, about three-quarters of the way down from the Park's northern boundary. The Muaredzi River, flowing from the Cheringoma Plateau, deposits sediments near the outlet of the lake slowing its drainage. This "plug" causes the Urema River to greatly expand in the rainy season. Water that makes its way past this alluvial fan
Alluvial fan
An alluvial fan is a fan-shaped deposit formed where a fast flowing stream flattens, slows, and spreads typically at the exit of a canyon onto a flatter plain. A convergence of neighboring alluvial fans into a single apron of deposits against a slope is called a bajada, or compound alluvial...
flows down the Urema River to the Pungue and into the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
. In the flooded rainy season, water backs up into the valley and out onto the plains, covering as much as 200 square kilometers in many years. During some dry seasons, the lake's waters shrink to as little as 10 square kilometers. This constant expansion and retraction of the floodplains, amidst a patchwork of savanna
Savanna
A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...
, woodland
Woodland
Ecologically, a woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of...
, and thickets, creates a complex mosaic of smaller ecosystems that support a greater abundance and diversity of wildlife than anywhere else in the park.
Vegetation
Scientists have identified three main vegetation types supporting the Gorongosa ecosystem’s wealth of wildlife. Seventy-six percent is savannaSavanna
A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...
— combinations of grasses and woody species that favor well-drained soils. Fourteen percent is woodland
Woodland
Ecologically, a woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of...
s — several kinds of forest and thickets. The rest is grasslands subjected to harsh seasonal conditions that prevent trees from growing. All three types are found throughout the system, with many different sub-types and varieties.
Mount Gorongosa has rainforests, montane grasslands, riverine forests along its rivers, and forests and savanna woodlands at lower elevations. Both plateaus are covered with a kind of closed-canopy savanna
Savanna
A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...
, widespread in southern Africa, called “miombo
Miombo
Miombo is the Swahili word for Brachystegia, a genus of tree comprising a large number of species. Miombo woodland is classified in the tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome...
,” after the Swahili word for the dominant tree, a member of the Brachystegia
Brachystegia
Brachystegia is a genus of tree of the sub-family Caesalpinioideae that is native to tropical Africa. Trees of the genus are commonly known as Miombo, and are the predominant tree in the Miombo woodlands of central and southern Africa.-Species:...
genus. About 20 percent of the valley’s grasslands are flooded much of the year.
Mount Gorongosa
More than 2,000 people live on Gorongosa mountain. Residents of the mountain practice agriculture for subsistence and grow horticultural products that are a significant contribution to the nutritional needs of many residents of the district, filling the district's markets with a seasonal variety of fresh produce and livestock for purchase. They have lived on the mountain for generations and their agricultural and social practices that govern land use have kept the unique rain forest at the mountain's summit in such a condition that it supports rare or threatened species, including some endemics such as the famed green headed oriole. The state of this ecological system-- rare in its degree of preservation thanks to the sound land use practices of residents over generations, has attracted the attention of conservationists, ornithologists, botanists and outdoor enthusiasts from around the world. At least 500 households can be found living on verdant and fertile lands above 700 meters in an area that is characterized by wide rolling valleys suitable for small scale subsistence farming. It is argued by some that shifting agriculture is rapidly destroying the forest, and environmental groups have made exaggerated claims that the forest is rapidly disappearing when the material evidence for this is sketchy. Such claims are behind an effort to gain financial support to "restore the mountain" and include it in the nearby national park, which would place the welfare and livelihoods of hundreds of long-term residents at risk.Wildlife
Many of the park's large herbivore
Herbivore
Herbivores are organisms that are anatomically and physiologically adapted to eat plant-based foods. Herbivory is a form of consumption in which an organism principally eats autotrophs such as plants, algae and photosynthesizing bacteria. More generally, organisms that feed on autotrophs in...
populations were greatly reduced by years of war and poaching. However, almost all naturally occurring species—including more than 400 kinds of bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s and a wide variety of reptiles--have survived. With effective management and reintroductions of key species, wildlife populations will regain their natural numbers and help restore the park's ecological balance.
External links
- Official park web site in several languages, including English
- Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting American Greg Carr Describes Why He Is Devoting His Life And Fortune To Gorongosa (Video)
- Explore Gorongosa