“The rehabilitation of Gorongosa National Park in Central Mozambique represents one of the great conservation opportunities in the world today.” Goroongosa.net web site. I have been fortunate during the past couple of years to be able to visit the Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique, during development missions for the World Bank. We were looking at assisting a local town to provide a sustainable source of water. The National Park is very large and brought to mind a vision of Eden in its tranquility and wealth of diverse species of flora and fauna. The park was all but destroyed during the long and brutal Mozambican civil war but a programme of the government and the US Carr Foundation was begun in 2006 to restore the park. This is a delicate process of addressing not only the needs of the wildlife in the park, but also the needs of the communities which surround the park. These are very poor and many families are in the perilous position of having to rely on daily coping strategies which impact heavily on the environment, such as the widespread practice of ‘charcoaling’. (See my earlier posing entitled Charcoal and deforestation).
One of the unique aspects of the Gorongosa ecosystem is the seasonal ‘breathing’ of the large wetland in the centre of the park. Because of the inflow of rainfall off Mount Gorongosa and a backwater effect from the Pungwe River into which the wetland flows, the wetland increases substantially in size in the wet season with the river flowing in one direction and then recedes in the dry season when the direction of the river flow reverses. This effect is threatened by deforestation of Mount Gorongosa (which is resulting in high sediment loads depositing in the wetland) and the increasing demands being placed on the Pungwe River which provides irrigation water to commercial farms and the water supply of Beira, the second largest city in the country.
If you ever get the chance to visit game parks in Southern Africa, you MUST include Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. For images of some of the wildlife which I have been fortunate to capture, see the Season Images Gallery and the Gorongosa Images post of this Blog.
I’m on for Gorongosa – just say the word. Love the photo of the impala. The foliage ‘arch’ gives the impression that one is given a privileged glimpse of the Eden you mentioned.