Gorongosa National Park is a large protected area undergoing restoration following the impacts of war in Mozambique. Since 2008, the Gorongosa Project funded by a public-private partnership between the Government of Mozambique and a US philanthropic organisation has aimed to integrate conservation and wildlife restoration with local community development focused on health, education (especially for girls) and sustainable community forestry and natural resources management. A range of digital technologies have been introduced to support the project's environmental and social goals.

Gorongosa Project Technologies

Technologies deployed in the park include EarthRanger software to support field rangers in monitoring radio-collared animals and in law enforcement around activities considered to be illegal in the park. Camera traps facilitate real-time observation of animal movements but also poaching and deforestation activity. Monitoring technologies are used to intervene in issues of human-animal coexistence, for example if animals destroy local communities' crops or communities remove areas of forest for agriculture .

GorongosaNationalPark_Buffalo

Buffalo being monitored in Gorongosa National Park. Image source: Gorongosa National Park [photograph]. Retrieved 3 August 2022, from https://gorongosa.org/ecological-monitoring-2/

How do digital technologies support and/or complicate the Gorongosa Project's stated aims of intertwined conservation practices with local community development and participation , and what are the social, political, and ecological impacts of these technologies?

Find out more in our radio episode with Larissa Souza, Associate Director of Communications at Gorongosa National Park.