The wildlife and infrastructure of the park were decimated during the Mozambican Civil War, which lasted from 1977 until 1992 and dramatically reduced the number of animals within Gorongosa; the zebra population was reduced from an estimated 3,500 individuals to just nine.
Since it was reopened in 1998 the park has undergone an ambitious restoration project, which has been widely hailed as a remarkable conservation success story. Herds of elephant, buffalo and zebra have been reintroduced, and the largest population of waterbuck in any of Africa’s protected areas can now be found grazing in the parks floodplains.
