Parque Nacional da Gorongosa Moçambique

Canda is one of the largest communities near the Park. It covers an area of approximately 1,000 square kilometers and extends over a large portion of Mount Gorongosa, including Murombodzi Waterfall and Gogogo Peak, the mountain's highest point. Canda's land is beautiful and rich in natural resources.

Traditional belief in the spirit world is strong among Canda's residents. They believe the mountain to be sacred and protected by their ancestors. The community's "regulo" (leader) performs a ceremony to bless visitors before they are allowed to hike on the slopes. On some parts of the mountain outsiders are not allowed to wear red. 

Leader: Eugénio de Almeida

Projects with Gorongosa National Park

Ecotourism

We are collaborating with Canda to create an ecotourism business on the mountain. We hire community members to work as guides and we pay the community of Canda a fee for each tourist who hikes on their land. Ecotourism will provide a new source of income to local communities that is sustainable, long-term, and serves as a source of diversification to their farming. Our goal is to create an incentive for the people of Canda to protect mountain forests instead of clearing them.

Tree Nursery Program

In recent years, deforestation from traditional slash and burn farming on the mountain has increased at an alarming rate. If that continues, within a few years most of the mountain's forest will be gone. To reverse that trend, the Park is hiring Canda community members to grow and maintain tree nurseries on the mountain. Farmers who might otherwise be clearing land for new farms are now planting saplings along stream banks to reduce erosion and reforesting abandoned farmland. In agricultural areas lower on the mountain, these trees will serve to produce fruit, timber, and firewood for local use.