Community-based conservation

Chitengo Camp, Gorongosa National Park

One of the highlights of the expedition to date was our trip to the local village Vinho.  Morgan, Liz, Greg, and I were led by Castro down the road from Chitengo to the Pungue River for our crossing.  On the way we joked about the about the two local village names Vinho (wine) and Bebeda (drunk).  After some talk with locals we discovered that Bebeda is actually Sena for “bite.”   This origin of the name was connected to past Hippo wanderings into the community from the river.  Few realize that the hippos take more human lives in Africa than any of the other megafauna.  After hearing of the “bite” story we then speculated a clever Portuguese adventure may have given Vinho its name following Bebeda. Morgan suggested we should investigate further and I agreed.

Arriving at the river we found the boatman with his craft and a long bamboo pole to be used to “punt” across the river.  Even though we were in the dry season there was still good flow in the Pungue and the boatman navigated cleanly across the current.  Local women just wearing skirts were washing their clothes on some rocks along the shore in a timeless scene.

Walking to the village behind a few women bearing large loads of laundry balanced on their heads took us through large crops of maize and some beans.  Many of the residents of the community work in the Park and would greet Greg with an enthusiastic “Boa tarde Senhor Gregy!” (good afternoon) and warm laughter as we passed.  It is continually made clear how Greg’s vision of developing community support, financial enterprise and good spirits has made wildlife recovery and habitat restoration in Gorongosa possible.  This reminded me of young Jane Goodall and her early work in Gombe, Tanzania.   Since she was not allowed to travel alone as a young woman, her mother escorted on her first expedition.  Eventually, her mother established a small infirmary nearby the chimp study site which allowed Jane to gain great acceptance and support with the local community.  A healthy ecosystem requires all components to be working in a fine balance.

One of the first community development projects we came to was the health clinic established by the Carr Foundation.  We spoke to the nurse and discovered 51 patients had been treated so far during the day. Of those patients 5 were for malaria.  Visiting travelers from outside of Sub-Saharan Africa have the advantage of being able to take prophylactics like Malarone or Doxycycline in order to prevent infection by the mosquito-borne parasite Plasmodium.  Everyone else needs a vaccine.  The world needs to know a vaccine is necessary.  Unfortunately, 25% of the Mozambique population has malaria.  Pregrant women and children under 5 are hit the hardest. Whoever is reading this please do what you can to support vaccine development or other medical research for malaria eradication. 

Education is another enormous problem that needs to be addressed throughout Mozambique.  Locally, education stops terminates in the 5^th grade.  This is tragic.  The new school we saw in Vinho is one huge step forward.  We met a range of kids near the school and fell in love with their resourcefulness with the bamboo push cars they had made.   Thanks to community-based efforts in supporting education these kids have a chance to do something good for their community, for Gorongosa, and for Mozambique.