May and June brought a season of new footing at Gorongosa — in leadership, in collaborations, and in the hands of the young people stepping into the Park's future. A scientist who has spent over a decade in Gorongosa took the helm of its science program. Farmers became teachers. Students became professionals. And beyond the Park's borders, the world kept noticing what's being built here — through new partnerships, recognitions, and the kind of attention that follows real, sustained work. It's been a season of new voices finding their place, and deep roots holding firm. | |
Carvalho, receiving the 2025 BBVA Foundation Worldwide Award for
Biodiversity Conservation on behalf of Gorongosa National Park
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Gorongosa welcomes Professor Susana Carvalho as Director of Science
Gorongosa National Park has appointed Professor Susana Carvalho as its new Director of Science — a researcher who has spent 11 years of her past two decades working in Gorongosa. A paleoanthropologist, primatologist, and archaeologist, Carvalho comes to the role from Oxford University's chair in Paleoanthropology, bringing with her a 100-publication research record and a conviction that science only matters if it builds people alongside knowledge.
Her fingerprints are already deep in Gorongosa's scientific identity. She founded the Interdisciplinary Field School in 2018 — training roughly 100 students, half of them Mozambican — and led the Paleo-Primate Project, which drew researchers from 40 institutions worldwide and opened new frontiers in fossil discovery and evolutionary research in Mozambique. She is currently supervising eight young Mozambican scholars, including four pursuing graduate degrees in Europe. Some are firsts in their fields — among them the first Mozambican primatologist.
Carvalho succeeds the late Dr. Marc Stalmans, whose legacy of rigorous, ecosystem-rooted science she inherits with evident seriousness. "Her work reflects the very essence of what Gorongosa stands for," said GRP President Aurora Malene — "science in service of people and nature."
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| | Representatives from the University of Pittsburgh, MISAU, and Gorongosa Restoration Project will meet together in July; a follow up to a health-centered conference held earlier this year | | |
Gorongosa and the University of Pittsburgh: A partnership moving forward
The University of Pittsburgh's Health Sciences division recently spotlighted its growing relationship with the Gorongosa Restoration Project — a collaboration now well into its second year, built around the conviction that healthy ecosystems and healthy communities are inseparable. In partnership with Mozambique's Ministry of Health (MISAU), the collaboration is focused on strengthening an integrated health system in Central Mozambique.
This July, representatives from GRP, the Carr Foundation, and MISAU will travel to Pittsburgh for a week-long working session focused on developing the health system, building the new regional teaching hospital in Sofala Province, and operationalizing the broader One Health agenda that will support and shape the future of health and wellbeing in and around Gorongosa.
Read the University of Pittsburgh article →
| | Interns from the Polytechnic Institute | |
The next generation is learning by doing
Gorongosa has always believed that investing in people is as essential as protecting wildlife. This spring, that belief took concrete form twice over. Five young people from Gorongosa district and the city of Beira began six-month placements with GRP through the MozYouth Foundation Internship Program — gaining hands-on experience in fleet management, mechanics, electrical systems, and workplace health and safety. For many, it marks their first time working in a structured professional environment. The program is made possible through a partnership between GRP, the MozYouth Foundation, and the Embassy of Ireland, which has long supported both youth empowerment and sustainable development in the communities surrounding the Park.
At the same time, 19 students from the Gorongosa Polytechnic Institute's tourism program arrived at the Park for 45-day placements — learning conservation, hospitality, and what it takes to turn a wild landscape into an unforgettable experience for visitors. Together, these two cohorts represent something Gorongosa has worked toward from the beginning: a pipeline of skilled, locally rooted professionals who will carry this place forward — people who don't just work here, but belong here.
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| | Community and Livelihoods | | |
Teaching equality, one community at a time
In the coffee-growing communities around Mount Gorongosa, a new group of teachers is getting ready. Twenty-four agricultural technicians recently completed a training-of-trainers workshop in Gorongosa Village focused on gender equality — equipped now to carry that work into the fields. The training used the GALS methodology — Gender Action Learning System — a community-driven approach that helps participants examine gender roles, challenge harmful norms, and build more equitable households and workplaces from the inside out, rather than through top-down instruction. With support from Irish Aid, the 24 newly trained facilitators will lead sessions for approximately 750 farmers and coffee producers across the Serra da Gorongosa in the coming months — with a particular focus on creating opportunities for women and preventing gender-based violence. It's quiet work, done close to the ground. But at Gorongosa, that's often where the most durable change begins.
| | Gorongosa Ventures and Agriculture | | Visitors from the Netherlands seeing Gorongosa's coffee production process | |
A Dutch delegation sees Gorongosa coffee in action
Coffee grown in the shade of native trees on the slopes of Mount Gorongosa is starting to draw international attention — and investment. As part of the Mozambique and European Union Business Global Gateway Forum, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands signed a €60 million Green Value for Growth program in early June to strengthen Mozambique's coffee, cashew, and soybean value chains. Days later, an 11-person Dutch delegation, led by Ambassador for Trade Marchel Gerrmann, traveled to Gorongosa to see the model firsthand — touring the coffee processing facility, meeting with local producers, and walking the agroforestry systems that let coffee, forest, and farmer thrive together.
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| Photo from Classic Portfolio | | |
Gorongosa featured in Travel Weekly
Gorongosa was featured in Travel Weekly's recent coverage of Mozambique's emerging wildlife tourism scene. The piece traces Gorongosa's journey from a landscape recovering from civil war to the anchor of what the article calls "Mozambique's wildlife moment," pointing to recent infrastructure milestones, including the relaunch of Air Gorongosa with a modernized fleet and new flight routes connecting the park to Vilanculos and the coast. The article also highlights Gorongosa Restoration Project President Aurora Malene's 2026 plans, from expanding sustainable coffee production to funding a new regional hospital — evidence, as the piece puts it, that Mozambique is now "a fully formed, commercially viable circuit."
Read the full article on Travel Weekly →
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See what others are saying about the tourism options offered through Gorongosa Safaris.
| | Photo from Togara Charingira | | |
Originally released in 2023, this incredible documentary by filmmakers Bernadette Gilbertas and Olivier Grunewald is now publicly available in English.
Gorongosa joins the world in celebrating the incredible legacy and work of the beloved broadcaster, and remembering his visit to Gorongosa where he described the work as "...a real success story."
Gorongosa recognizes and celebrates the tens of thousands of children in the surrounding region, both on International Children's Day (June 1) and African Children's Day (June 16).
Published by Planetary Responsibility, this interview with Greg Carr details Gorongosa's plans for the future that focus on building resilience and opportunity in the local communities through community-based capitalism and sustainable economic development.
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Our Mission
To generate prosperity and protect biodiversity across 2 million hectares of Africa’s Great Rift Valley.
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