Trees, tech and people help Mozambican park reverse nature losses

Margardia Victor, a Geographic Information System (GIS) expert working at Gorongosa National Park, shows how the reserve’s technology was used to map flood areas during Cyclone Idai, which slammed that area of Mozambique in 2019, May 23, 2022. — Thomson Reuters Foundation

GORONGOSA, Mozambique: For over two years, park warden Pedro Muagura drove up a dirt road every month to Mozambique’s conflict-ridden Mount Gorongosa to secretly monitor a daring experiment to reforest the mountain’s parched land.

Equipped with coffee seedlings his mother gave him, he began planting, surrounding the cash crop with fast-growing indigenous trees he hoped would shield it and in time restore the mountain’s forests.