Parque Nacional da Gorongosa Moçambique

 
The peace didn't last. Threatened by a popular new Marxist government next door, South Africa began arming and supplying a rebel army to destabilize it. In December 1981, for the first time, Gorongosa National Park felt the full fury of war when Mozambique National Resistance (MNR, or RENAMO) fighters attacked the Chitengo campsite and kidnapped several staff, including two foreign scientists.

The violence increased in and around the Park after that. In 1983 it 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, buffaloes, and other hoofed animals. Lions and other large predators were gunned down for sport or died of starvation when their prey disappeared.

Thousands of people living in or near the Park were being brutalized towards the end of the war when the rebels controlled much of Gorongosa District. Some people sought refuge in the Park. Desperate for meat, they hunted at will, further reducing the Park's wildlife.

The civil war ended in 1992 but widespread hunting in the Park continued for two more years. By that time many large mammal populations--including elephants, hippos, buffalos, zebras, and lions--had been reduced by 90 percent or more. Fortunately, the Park's spectacular birdlife emerged relatively unscathed.

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