Life and death in Mozambique
Gorongosa National Park is home to some of the biologically richest and most diverse ecosystems on the African continent. Scientists and photographers Jen Guyton and Piotr Naskrecki have been photographing the wildlife there.
About the Gorongosa
Situated at the southernmost end of the African Great Rift Valley and covering 4,000 km2, Gorongosa National Park is located in Mozambique, and encompasses four major ecological zones and spans the elevation gradient from sea-level floodplains of Lake Urema to high montane meadows of Mt. Gorongosa.
The Gorongosa Restoration Project, which has managed the recovery of the park following Mozambique’s civil war, has nearly fully rebuilt wildlife stock decimated by the conflict. Gorongosa is now home to thriving populations of 150 mammal and over 420 bird species, and an astonishing diversity of plants and invertebrate animals.
About the photographers
Piotr Naskrecki is a zoologist and photographer, based at Harvard University, Cambridge, USA. He directs the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Laboratory at Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique where he trains a new cadre of Mozambican conservationists and helps restore the park, which suffered during the recent civil war. He is one of the founding members of the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP) and author of several books that explore little known organisms and ecosystems of the globe.
Jen Guyton is an ecologist with a passion for wildlife conservation and science communication. She is a National Geographic Explorer and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, with a masters degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University, where she is currently pursuing her PhD. She has traveled on five continents, including many years of working on wildlife and conservation projects in Africa. Jen currently studies mammal ecology and conservation in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique.
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Some of these images originally appeared in the July 2017 issue of BBC Wildlife Magazine.
To view the images as a slideshow, click on the arrows in the top right hand corner of the photos below.
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