wildlife tourism mozambique

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Mozambique is a southern African nation whose long Indian Ocean coastline is dotted with popular beaches like Tofo, as well as offshore marine parks. In the Quirimbas Archipelago, a 250km stretch of coral islands, mangrove-covered Ibo Island has colonial-era ruins. It’s also a diving and snorkeling destination, as is Bazaruto Archipelago farther south, with reefs protecting rare marine life including dugongs.

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Science at Gorongosa

Registration for the Masters in Conservation Biology in Gorongosa National Park closed on November 3, 2023. Thank you for your interest.

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A Park for the People

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Gorongosa National Park featured as a successful public-private partnership model in new World Bank report

Conservation at Gorongosa

Protecting one of the worlds most beautiful places. 

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(1929 – 2021) – A Tribute

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Gorongosa National Park

Gorongosa Tourism

Pre-bookings for accomnodation and activities advised – please contact [email protected] for more information.

Gorongosa National Park is open for tourist activities!

Gorongosa National Park is perhaps Africa’s Greatest Conservation Story. Visit and see why this has been called one of the “Last Wild Places” by National Geographic.

Gorongosa National Park (GNP) in Mozambique is perhaps Africa’s greatest wildlife restoration story. In 2008, the Government of Mozambique and the Carr Foundation formed the “Gorongosa Project”, a 20-year Public-Private Partnership for the joint management of the Park and for human development in the communities near the Park. On June 7th 2018, the Government of Mozambique signed an extension of the management agreement of Gorongosa National Park for another 25 years.

By adopting a 21st Century conservation model of balancing the needs of wildlife and people, we are protecting and saving this beautiful wilderness, returning it to its rightful place as one of Africa’s greatest parks.

We are achieving our mission by working in these four core areas:

Conservation: By protecting Gorongosa’s beautiful animals and landscapes, we ensure future generations have a chance to experience this special place.

Community: By providing educational programs, health care, and agricultural support to families–we improve the well-being of local communities.

Science: By studying how all the parts of Gorongosa’s complex web of life fit together, we can make informed conservation and management decisions.

Sustainable Tourism: By developing sustainable tourism, we create employment for local people and generate sustainable revenue for the Park. Every guest that visits Gorongosa plays a vital role in this amazing conservation effort.

mission video

From the moment you set foot here, your life will never be the same. Experience the rich wildlife and landscapes of Gorongosa.

Our guides are local, and they know about the biodiversity, culture, geography and wildlife in the Park. With decades of knowledge between them, know that you are in good hands.

Gabriela Curtiz

Gorongosa Guide

Test Malunga

Richard Lusinga

Our mission.

Advance an integrated multi-partner approach to conservation and to people-centred development. The Gorongosa Project protects the Park’s biodiversity and ecosystem services and unlocks its economic potential for the community inhabitants of the Gorongosa Buffer Zone, Sofala Province, Mozambique and further afield.

A thriving, biodiversity-rich, Greater Gorongosa conservation landscape, which supports Sofala Province as an engine for resilient and sustainable development enabling nature experiences and wellbeing for its people, enriching all of Mozambique and the world.

A Park for Peace

On 1 August, 2019 a historic ceremony was held in Gorongosa to celebrate the Cessation of Hostilities Accord between the leaders of the Government of Mozambique and the opposition Renamo Party. The accord established Gorongosa National Park (GNP) as a ‘Park for Peace’, delivering human development to the communities that share the greater landscape.

Ethics and Compliance

The Ethics and Compliance e-mail is a reporting mechanism that facilitates reporting of possible illegal, unethical, or improper conduct from staff, suppliers and stakeholders. The e-mail is [email protected]

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Mozambique wildlife safaris

Best wildlife safaris in mozambique, azura beach holiday.

6 days • 1 location VILANCULOS AIRPORT TO VILANCULOS AIRPORT

US$5,250 - US$6,880 per person

Azura Benguerra

Azura Benguerra offers some of the best marine wildlife encounters in Mozambique, be it diving and snorkelling with a multitude of fish, finding Dugong in the mainland's mangroves or getting up close with the largest fish in the sea, the whale shark.

Best camps & lodges for Wildlife safaris in Mozambique

Azura at Quilalea

Home to a spectacular array of marine wildlife the waters around Azure Quilalea offer some of the best diving in Mozambique. Furthermore, humpback's visit these warm, sheltered waters to raise their young, providing superb whale watching (Jul-Nov).

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Pagina inicial

Experience the zinave national park.

Zinave National Park (400,000 ha) is situated between areas featuring wet tropical lands and the dry lands and plays a critical role within the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (10 million ha), which has been described as one of the world´s greatest animal kingdoms.

How to get here

Discover all the accesses that will bring you to the park by land and by air..

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Map of the Park

Species you can see, the big five in the park.

Explore remote wilderness and beautiful tree scenery

4x4 self-drive safari, bird watching, we provide the best self-catering rustic campsites experience, the park has an arrival tourism centre with a tourist information desk, rustic campsites and basic tented overnight facilities by the save river, accomodation facilities.

Zinave is in the early stages of development with and basic tented overnight facilities at Tondo, situated on the Save River. The park has two rustic campsites: one at Baobab Camp and the Leadwood Campsite which can be accessed most times of the year. Visitors need to be completely self-sufficient for these campsites.

Baobab Camping

Leadwood campsite, current developments.

In 2018, a co-management technical financial agreement was signed between the National Administration for Conservation Areas (ANAC) and Peace Parks Foundation for a period of three years which focus on securing the landscape and ensuring the essential park management services are provided. Over recent years the Park has also benefitted from funding support towards Operating costs from the Biofund programme

• More than 2,280 animals translocated into the sanctuary
• An average of 100 community members employed
• Communities have a 20% share of parks revenue

What to see

Dive into a typical african bush scenery.

Hipopotamus

Make your Reservation today

Contact: tourism officer - gildo mazive mobile: (+258) 87 008 9673 email: [email protected], our latest news & articles.

Mozambique Government, Peace Parks Foundation and Partners Secure Massive Success for Rhino Survival

Rhino return to Zinave National Park after 40 years

Zinave National Park now has 237 elephants

Lions return to Zinave National Park

Hyenas arrive safely in Zinave National Park

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Mozambique Safaris

Mozambique's coastline is an African gem, with palm-fringed beaches, azure waters, and incredible wildlife. The Gorongosa National Park offers an off-the-beaten-track safari experience. From Maputo to the Quirimbas Archipelago, Mozambique has something for everyone, including luxury beach resorts and traditional safari camps.

The Mozambique Safari Experience

• Relax alongside the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean in Zanzibar.
• Visit Tofo's beaches are perfect for diving and snorkelling. You can swim with manta rays, dolphins, and whale sharks.
• Venture The Bazaruto archipelago in the north is home to rare dugongs and diverse marine life on colourful coral reefs.
• Explore Cabo Delgado province boasts a beautiful coastline and the Quirimbas archipelago with its tropical islands and resorts. Ibo, the most famous island, has a rich history as a trading post and a mix of cultures seen in its colonial villas.

Why NWS for your Mozambique Safari?

At Natural World Safaris, we specialise in creating bespoke travel itineraries tailored to your specific interests. Whether you're after a wildlife safari, cultural exploration, or beach getaway, we can design the perfect Mozambique itinerary for you. Our commitment to responsible and sustainable tourism means that we work closely with local communities and conservation organizations to ensure a positive impact on the environment and people. We offer unique experiences, such as private game drives and guided tours of local villages, that you won't find anywhere else.

Wildlife & Wilderness: Gorongosa Safari

Known in Mozambique as the ‘Park for Peace’, Gorongosa is one of Africa’s last true wild places with the greatest wildlife restoration story. When the war ended in 1992, the landscape was devastated and more than 90% of Gorongosa’s large mammals had disappeared. Efforts were made to rehabilitate Gorongosa after the war but it wasn’t until 2004, when American philanthropist Greg Carr partnered with the Mozambican government to restore the park, that it started coming back to life. The Gorongosa Restoration Project has worked with the Government of Mozambique for the past 20 years to restore wildlife to the Gorongosa National Park, in what is perhaps the greatest restoration success in Africa.

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How much does mozambique cost.

An 8-day safari in Mozambique starts at £4,000 per person and includes food, drinks, private guides, and transfers. For a longer trip covering Mozambique and South Africa, the budget needs to increase to £8,300 per person. The extended trip includes top-quality guides, private villas, and incredible excursions.

Where to stay in Mozambique?

Mozambique has some of the world's best beaches and accommodations. It's a perfect starting point for excursions into the water. Guests can enjoy stunning ocean views in luxurious surroundings or opt for eco-friendly lodges that benefit the local environment and community.

When to go to Mozambique?

Mozambique's best time to visit depends on your preferences and location. The country has a varied climate and distinct seasons. The dry season between April and November is considered the best time to visit. The wet season from January to March offers wildlife events but may deter some travellers due to the rains.

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E.O. Wilson

A legendary advocate for science & the natural world. E.O. Wilson’s long and remarkable career had small beginnings; much smaller than most.

When to Visit Mozambique

The best time to go to Mozambique depends on what you want to see, and where you want to go. With a coastline stretching for more than 1,000 miles along the southeast of the African continent, Mozambique has a varied climate, which means the best time to visit the country cannot be narrowed down easily. Our When to Go pages outline the advantages and disadvantages to visiting Mozambique during each month of the year, although bear in mind that it is always best to check the current situation before travel with one of our Destination Specialists.

What to expect from a trip to Mozambique

Mozambique Safaris FAQs

Is mozambique good for safari.

Mozambique offers unique and diverse safari experiences, particularly along its coastline and in some of its national parks and reserves. While the country is more renowned for its stunning beaches and marine life, it also provides opportunities for wildlife viewing and safari adventures. Gorongosa National Park , for example, is known for its conservation efforts and offers opportunities to spot elephants, lions, hippos, and a variety of bird species. The Niassa Reserve is another option, providing a more off-the-beaten-path safari experience with its rugged landscapes and diverse ecosystems. Although not as established as certain other African safari destinations , Mozambique's safari offerings can complement a beach-centric vacation or provide a distinct wildlife experience.

Is Mozambique safe for tourism?

Mozambique is generally safe for tourism, having made progress in terms of stability. Tourists should exercise caution, be mindful of local conditions, adhere to safety guidelines, and protect their belongings. While tourist areas are generally secure, checking travel advisories and practicing standard safety measures is recommended. With sensible travel practices, Mozambique offers an enjoyable and fulfilling destination for beach holidays, water sports, and cultural experiences.

What vaccinations are required for Mozambique?

For travel to Mozambique, it is advisable to ensure routine vaccinations such as MMR and Tdap are up to date. Additionally, recommended and potentially required vaccinations include yellow fever (if coming from a risk area), typhoid, hepatitis A and B, and rabies if close animal contact is anticipated. Malaria is prevalent, so taking appropriate antimalarial medication is essential. Consult a healthcare professional for personalised advice based on your health history, travel plans, and the latest health advisories

What to do in Mozambique

Mozambique offers a variety of activities for travellers . Its stunning coastline is a highlight, providing opportunities for beach relaxation, water sports such as diving and snorkelling to explore vibrant coral reefs, and enjoying fresh seafood. The Bazaruto Archipelago is renowned for its idyllic islands and marine life. Explore cultural heritage in cities like Maputo, with its markets, architecture, and museums. Nature lovers can visit Gorongosa National Park for wildlife spotting and ecotourism. Enjoy local cuisine, music, and art, and immerse yourself in the vibrant local culture.

What do I need to know before going to Mozambique?

Before travelling to Mozambique, ensure you have the necessary visa and vaccinations, and carry local currency. Familiarise yourself with the official language, Portuguese, and respect local customs. Stay informed about safety conditions, especially in areas with past security concerns, and be prepared for Mozambique's tropical climate. Plan transportation and accommodation in advance, respect cultural etiquette, and practise responsible tourism. Stay updated on weather conditions and potential natural hazards, and bring appropriate electrical adapters. Research and preparation will contribute to a smoother and more enjoyable experience in Mozambique. If you need assistance in planning accommodation then be sure to check out our guide on where to stay in Mozambique .

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• Wildlife in Mozambique

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By Lana Goodwin

Safari Travel Planner

Most visitors, quite rightly, come to Mozambique for a beach holiday . There are hundreds of dive and snorkeling sites along this quite extraordinary coast. And besides the abundant reef fish and spectacular coral, there are also the glorious marine giants.

The soft-shelled leatherback turtle grows to over two-and-a-half meters long, and the beach town of Tofo is famous for its whale shark snorkeling and dives with manta rays.

Humpback whales can even be seen breaching from shore as they pass down the coast between June and December.

Away from the sea, the wildlife is less prolific; Mozambique’s parks and reserves suffered extensive poaching throughout the war. To some extent, the problem of poaching continues, but two reserves, in particular, are showing hopeful signs.

Gorongosa National Park was once one of the top safari parks in Africa, and although populations are still recovering, lions, elephants, and numerous antelope species can be found.

In the far south of Mozambique, the Maputo Special Reserve protects some of Mozambique’s most pristine lakes and beaches, and there’s a small but visible elephant population that calls the reserve home.

Both of these parks, and Mozambique as a whole, are truly wonderful if you like birding safaris . Pack your binoculars to see some of Mozambique’s 750 or more species – that’s 50 more species than across all of mainland Europe!

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More than half of Mozambique’s wildlife is gone forever.

Balancing mozambique’s natural beauty and natural resources..

Located on the southeast coast of Africa, the Republic of Mozambique is divided into two regions by the Zambezi River. The north features a narrow coastline, low plateaus, and rugged highlands and the south has broad lowlands. The savannah and dry woodland habitats near the border of South Africa's Kruger National Park are home to elephants, impala, duiker, springbok, kudu, and ostrich. Nearby, Banhine National Park is an important source of water in an overall arid area that is a sanctuary to wattled cranes and a wide variety of migratory birds as well as the killifish, a highly localized fish species of high ornamental value.

Filled with rich and extensive natural resources, Mozambique has enjoyed a growing economy based on agriculture, food and beverage processing, aluminum production, petroleum production, and chemical manufacturing. More than 75 percent of Mozambicans do small-scale farming. In 2012, large natural gas reserves were found, which could have a huge impact on the economy. Although its economy continues to grow, Mozambique remains one of the poorest countries in the world.

The return of peace brings the opportunity to safeguard a rich diversity of wildlife.

Mozambique’s government realizes actions speak louder than words and is undertaking large conservation efforts both on land and water. Mozambique is now committed to protecting areas like Quirimbas National Park, Bazaruto National Park, and Lake Niassa Reserve. In 2012, it also created the largest coastal/marine reserve in Africa with the Primeiras and Segundas Archipelago Environmental Protection Area, an archipelago chain of ten islands that feature some of Africa’s most flourishing marine life and coral reefs.

Meeting the Challenge

Our solutions to protecting Mozambique's unique biodiversity:

With its coastline and geographical location, Mozambique serves as a hotspot for wildlife trafficking — a serious threat to Mozambique's wildlife population. In partnership with the National Administration for Conservation Areas and the Peace Parks Foundation, AWF’s Canines for Conservation program has stationed wildlife detection dogs and handlers in Maputo with plans to expand into the country. The dog team deploys at strategic transit sites and major trafficking hubs throughout Mozambique to curb trafficking and thereby limit poaching of rhinos, elephants, and other iconic species. Detection canines are a proven tactic in deterring the ruthless and bloody wildlife trade.

AWF and the Mozambique Ministry of Tourism signed a historic agreement to solidify and formalize their longstanding partnership to restore the country’s once-abundant and flourishing wildlife by developing new tourism revenues for local communities.

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Mozambique as a wildlife safari destination

How is a country with a history of brutal civil war and wildlife genocide marketed to a world that is getting weary of marketing jargon? Mozambique is making it easy and ensuring that the promises are fulfilled. Known more for its beaches Mozambique is redefining itself as a wildlife safari destination .

The parks of Mozambique are fascinating in their various histories and associations. In the south the Limpopo National Park is now linked to the legendary Kruger National Park, this after the fence between the two was taken down by the South African authorities. Mozambican wildlife now roams freely between the two parks.

From paradise to hell and back

Mozambique - african wildlife safari.

The horror stories around the wildlife and parks of Mozambique should now be written into history and a concerted effort made to promote this  wildlife safari destination , not only to show support for the people of the country but also for the wildlife of Mozambique.

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Watch CBS News

In Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park, not just the animals are thriving

By Brit McCandless Farmer

Updated on: June 2, 2024 / 8:03 PM EDT / CBS News

Wildlife is abundant in Gorongosa National Park. Situated in the center of Mozambique in southeastern Africa, Gorongosa is home to tens of thousands of animals, including lions, leopards, elephants, and zebras. 

It is a remarkable sight, given the park's history — and the transformation has not only been for animal residents.  

Decades ago, Gorongosa was a world-famous park, renowned for its abundant wildlife. But from the 1960s until the 1990s, Mozambique was rocked by 28 years of war, first as the country gained its independence from Portugal, and then as a civil war broke out between the two main political movements. During the civil war, Gorongosa was often a battlefield; 95 percent of the wildlife was either poached by soldiers and local villagers desperate for food, or slaughtered for profit.

60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley first visited the national park in 2008 to follow American entrepreneur Greg Carr, who had spent the last four years devoting himself to returning Gorongosa to its former glory. At the time, Carr was beginning to reintroduce animals to the landscape. The effort was not without its challenges. Zebras, for example, had to be brought in from Zimbabwe, but that country's political and economic troubles at the time made importing anything impossible.

Carr's grand vision for the park went well beyond animals, however. It also extended to the people living around the park, who were surviving on not much more than a dollar a day.  

"The idea is, take the beauty of the park and use that to do human development," Carr told Pelley in 2008. "Attract the tourists who will spend the money to create the jobs and lift everybody out of poverty. For an entrepreneur, it's kind of a compelling opportunity to, you know, one plus one equals ten."

Pelley and 60 Minutes returned to Gorongosa in 2022 to see how Carr's equation was working out. The transformation was immediately evident.

"We used to drive on the trails here in 2008, and we would drive for hours and not see an animal, not one," Pelley told 60 Minutes Overtime. "Today you can't drive 100 yards without running into all kinds of spectacular African fauna and flora."

Carr's bet on human capital has also made a leap forward. Gorongosa now employs 1,600 mostly Mozambican workers. Carr's organization works in all 89 primary schools that surround the national park and trains hundreds of schoolteachers. Carr has also begun 92 after-school clubs that serve some 3,000 young girls. 

Part of his investment into the people of Gorongosa includes sending young people to the United States to go to college, including one young woman named Gabriela Curtiz. Fluent in numerous languages, Curtiz grew up in the Gorongosa area and is now enrolled at Boise State University in Idaho, where she's getting a degree in management. Her goal is to return and help manage Gorongosa.

Curtiz told Pelley that Carr's changes to Gorongosa have helped its people by giving them opportunity, especially women. 

"Here in Mount Gorongosa specifically, we have 800 people working on the coffee harvesting and planting native species. And half of them are women," Curtiz said. "So that gives prosperity. That gives voice to the women to express their opinion."

In the years to come, Carr has next set his sights on attempting to make the park self-sustaining. Ecotourism is the main initiative, and Carr has begun building high-end lodges to expand the park's revenue.  

Another income-generating idea is selling carbon credits, which act somewhat like a permit for a company's carbon emission. When a company, usually from a developed country, purchases a carbon credit, the company is then enabled to generate one ton of carbon emissions. For Gorongosa, the way for companies to offset their carbon usage is to buy trees. 

Mount Gorongosa, which looms over the rest of the park, had been heavily stripped of trees during years of civil war. Today Carr's non-profit foundation is giving away coffee trees for local farmers to plant as part of Mount Gorongosa's reforestation, and the foundation is negotiating the sale of carbon credits for this planting. 

The revenue from carbon credits, Carr said, will further benefit a region already impacted by climate change.

"I think we all know that there's too much carbon dioxide going up into the air, and it's heating the planet. And it's going to hammer Africa," Carr said. "Africa cannot afford any more droughts or for that [matter], many more cyclones."

All the money brought in from both tourism and carbon credits will be returned into the community, Carr said. 

As he looks toward the future, Carr's vision for Gorongosa remains the same as it did when he first arrived in 2004: helping the residents of Gorongosa — both four-legged and two-legged. 

"I like elephants," Carr told Pelley. "But I love people.'"

The video above was originally published on December 4, 2022 and was produced by Brit McCandless Farmer, Will Croxton, and Henry Schuster. It was edited by Will Croxton.

• Gorongosa National Park

Brit McCandless Farmer is a digital producer for 60 Minutes, where her work has been recognized by the Webby, Gracie, and Telly Awards. Previously, Brit worked at the CBS Weekend Evening News, CBS This Morning, CNN, and ABC News.

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Niassa Lion Project

Niassa is one of the last great wild places on earth., niassa is one of the important remaining strongholds for the african lion..

A growing human population of 60,000 in Niassa that needs food and income poses challenges to the reserve’s 800 lions. With few opportunities for education and employment, many families rely on the use of natural resources—particularly fish, skins, ivory, and bushmeat—to support their subsistence lifestyles. The greatest threat to lions in Niassa comes from snares that are set to capture bushmeat and a growing trade in lion skins, claws, and teeth.

Niassa Lion Project (NLP), which combines scientific rigor with passion, empathy and sound management practices, is as much about people as it is about lions. The team aims to build a sustainable lion-friendly community by working closely with community members, government officials, reserve management team, and tourism operators. They consider everyone a participant in conservation.

Spread the Word! Connect with Niassa Lion Project on Social Media.

VISIT WEBSITE

NLP is finding ways for people to live safely with lions.

Hungry people cannot care about conservation.

Dr. Colleen and Keith Begg, Co-Founders and Managing Directors

Keith and Colleen Begg met next to an elephant carcass in South Africa’s Kruger National Park more than twenty years ago and have been studying and protecting carnivores together ever since. Their first great love was the honey badger.

In 2002, Keith and Colleen set out across Africa on a 21,000 mile trek to find a place where they could make a real contribution to wildlife. When they arrived in Mozambique’s Niassa National Reserve, a place they had never heard of, they found their home. They climbed one of the mountains and sat there for days, seeing signs of both the abundance of and looming challenges for the Reserve’s wildlife.

Keith and Colleen established Niassa Lion Project in 2003, and employ only local Mozambicans. They live in Niassa National Reserve for most of the year with their two children.

Conservation Solutions

Reducing snaring, mining and poaching.

NLP’s anti-poaching program aims to reduce the illegal activities of snaring, mining, and elephant poaching in the Niassa Special Reserve. NLP strongly believes that reducing illegal wildlife activities can only be achieved through a holistic approach. Well-disciplined anti-poaching is performed in equal partnership with long-term community development and education programs that increase income and food security.

Wildlife Guardians Program

NLP’s Wildlife Guardians are committed to promoting coexistence in villages that share space with wildlife. The Guardians collect information on fishing activities, human-wildlife conflict, and species sightings, while also educating their communities to reduce threats. The Guardians are all in frequent mobile communication to create a community of conservationists that report on conflict quickly.

Wildlife Guardian Program

NLP’s research and monitoring efforts are specifically intended to inform their conservation efforts, as they consistently adapt approaches in response to new scientific data. NLP establishes baseline information about lion populations to monitor population trends over time, along with socio-ecological surveys to collect data about human behaviors and threats from carnivores.

Mariri Environmental Center

NLP’s Mariri Environmental Center hosts children and their teachers from across Niassa Reserve to play conservation games, climb mountains, go on game drives, debate conservation issues, and learn about alternative livelihoods like gardening, livestock breeding, and beekeeping. NLP also provides secondary school scholarships for children in remote villages that only have access to primary school.

Kushirika Crafts

Kushirika, which means “to come together,” is a handmade crafts program focused on the development of new skills and ensuring that traditional skills, such as basket weaving, are passed down to younger generations. Participants, including both men and women, have rules for joining the group, including no snaring or illegal activities. All income generated from their sale goes directly to the producers.

Conservation Agriculture & Ecotourism

Slash and burn agriculture is common in Niassa National Reserve, leading to low soil fertility. NLP works with farmers to improve soil productivity through their farmer field school, teaching techniques like low tillage, crop mixing, and mulching. Improving food security is essential for conservation to be successful, so NLP also leads beekeeping, small livestock breeding, and craft making programs.

Ministry of Tourism Sport Hunting Reduction

The decision to allow sport hunting in Niassa Reserve rests with the Mozambican Ministry of Tourism. Sport hunting of underage leopards and lions can be a threat to wildlife populations, so NLP helps to ensure sport hunting is sustainable. To do so, NLP developed a monitoring and quota-setting system, offering incentives for compliance and disincentives for violations, which was implemented by the Niassa Management Authority.

Lion Fun Days

Each year, NLP celebrates culture and conservation at their annual Lion Fun Days. In addition to playing games, school children put on theatrical performances and local dance groups develop special dances to share conservation lessons while honoring local culture and tradition. These festivals spread positive messages about safe behaviors, safe shelters, and the importance of wildlife.

Conservation Agriculture & Ecotourism

Impact by the numbers, lions recorded during nlp's carnivore surveys in 2023, local people participated in nlp's 13th community-led lion festival, people educated through nlp's education programs.

$60 pays for a four night bush visit to Mariri Environmental Center for a local child or month’s worth of food for a scout.

$2,400 pays a scout’s salary for one year.

$4,000 will buy a radio collar to keep track of lions near villages.

Donations of any amount can help support training courses at the Mariri Environmental Education and Skills Training Center .

Watch Dr. Colleen Begg talk at Expo

News & stories.

Keeping Niassa Safe for Lions

Learning to Value the Lives of Lions

A New and Dangerous Threat: Lion Poaching in Niassa

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4 Ways Helping People is Saving Rare Wildlife

It Takes a Village to Save Lions

Hungry People Cannot Care About Conservation: The First Beehive Fence in Niassa

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Niassa Lion Project Gets a Plane

World Environment Day 2018

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Private investors look to high-end tourism to fund conservation in Mozambique

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• Karingani Game Reserve is a 150,000-hectare (371,000-acre) private nature reserve being developed in southwestern Mozambique that intends to rehabilitate the landscape and boost wildlife populations inside its borders.
• Operators of Karingani say the reserve will finance itself by attracting high-end tourism and measures its progress through a novel set of conservation indicators.
• Attracting private capital into conservation projects has long been proposed as a way to cover shortfalls from public and philanthropic funding sources, with Karingani being a recent example of this approach.
• But local communities have complained in recent years that the land Karingani is being developed on was signed over to government officials under false pretenses, raising questions about power imbalances in the model.

When COVID-19 started to sweep across the world last year, conservationists feared that it would be a disaster for Africa’s wildlife . Tourism revenues evaporated, causing salary cuts and layoffs for rangers in protected game parks. But after a spike in poaching incidents looked to be confirming those fears at first, in some countries the opposite has proved to be the case: harsh lockdown measures instead led to a temporary decline in poaching of rhinos and other large game.

Still, the crisis has laid bare one of the central dilemmas for conservation in Africa: who pays for it, and are those funding streams resilient enough to hold up under pressure?

In the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area, a patchwork of protected nature reserves along the borderlands of Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, some investors are saying the answer is the private sector. One example is the Karingani Game Reserve in southwestern Mozambique, which is developing what it says will be a flagship example of private capital-driven conservation in Africa.

But with a history of land conflict between the reserve and rural communities living nearby, how will it balance its ambitious plans for high-end ecotourism with the livelihoods and cultural needs of those communities? And will those plans lead to a profitable, sustainable business model that can deliver benefits for wildlife and local people?

As the Mozambican government continues to encourage foreign investment into conservation in the wake of COVID-19, Karingani may prove to be a test case for whether private reserves can deliver on their promises.

Karingani Game Reserve

Karingani shares a 72-kilometer (45-mile) border with South Africa’s storied Kruger National Park, encompassing a massive 150,000-hectare (371,000 acre) swath of land in Mozambique’s Gaza and Maputo provinces, an area historically ravaged by poaching — especially for rhin o horn .

Operators of the reserve say they plan to restore wildlife populations, ecosystem functions and biodiversity on the land through a private-public funding model by partnering with the Mozambican government.

Karingani is owned by Twin City Ecoturismo Ltd., a sister company to the Twin City Development company, owned by South African real estate investor Arnold Pistorius, one of the three founding sponsors of the Karingani project a decade ago.

In an interview with Mongabay, Paul Milton, philanthropic adviser and CEO of Milton Group Ltd., a United Kingdom-based real estate company that oversees Karingani along with conservation investment projects in several other African countries, said that it has taken 12 years of acquiring land, millions of dollars in investments, the resettlement of some communities, and intensive negotiations with the government to get Karingani “ready to come to market.”

(Midway through the reporting for this article, Milton withdrew his participation with Mongabay and asked for it to be made clear that “the story is incomplete,” declining to answer a series of follow-up questions on how the reserve measures its progress toward conservation goals, along with other requests for information.)

“We’ve approached this differently, and we’ve only been able to do it because of long-term capital that we are privileged enough to be able to attract,” Milton said.

Among the successes Karingani claims to have achieved thus far are a drop in poaching-related incidents and the establishment of an agriculture project co-owned by communities living near the reserve. The reserve says it has also reintroduced 17 African wild dogs ( Lycaon pictus ), classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List, as part of its effort to cultivate biodiversity.

Like other private reserves operating across Africa, Karingani has its own fleet of armed rangers, surveillance helicopters, and K-9 and equine units to combat poaching.

“We are 100% convinced it is the only way to protect these pieces of land: boots on the ground, helicopters, private militia, anti-poaching teams in partnership with government, security forces, intelligence, you need all of that,” Milton said.

According to Karingani’s public-facing reports, in 2020 there were no poaching incidents of rhinos or other large game inside the reserve.

“Karingani is a pretty good example that’s going to ultimately, over time, be a case study for many others,” Milton said.

Conservation in a post-COVID world

In April 2021, after being postponed for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the IUCN African Protected Areas Congress officially launched, billing itself as the first pan-continental congress of its kind “ to discuss the role of protected areas in conserving nature and promoting sustainable development in Africa .” The congress will formally convene in Rwanda in March 2022 to discuss Africa’s conservation models and which ones are best suited to protecting nature on the continent.

The inaugural congress of leaders and interest groups comes at a time when many nations’ tourism-based economies are struggling to overcome the effects of the financially crippling pandemic. Some believe that monetizing the value of nature could help.

“The overall common goal is really to set a common agenda and have some shared values on how Africa’s protected areas are going to be managed,” Luther Bois Anukur, the IUCN regional director for eastern and southern Africa, told Mongabay in an interview. “I think that this is really the time for creating the link between nature and the economy.”

The pandemic devastated revenue models for many national parks, requiring shortfalls to be covered from donors or funds like the conservation trust fund BIOFUND , which used money from its endowment to support some private protected areas in Mozambique.

Currently, 25% of the national territory in Mozambique is designated as protected land. Financial assistance from international NGOs and agencies like the World Bank and USAID covered an estimated 80% of national park operating costs in 2014, with the rest being generated by tourism revenue and budgetary allocations from the Mozambican government, according to data from BIOFUND.

“The big issue is that [current models are] highly dependent on a model of financing that is not necessarily sustainable, and all protected areas are always struggling to get funds that can help them [get] by,” Anukur said.

Wealthy investors say that in some cases they can provide a solution to the funding gap — while also turning a profit — by offering services to high-end clients.

The Rockefeller Foundation estimated that in 2016, $52 billion was directed toward conservation projects across the world, well short of the $300 billion to $400 billion a year needed to protect the planet’s vital ecosystems. Private finance, the foundation said, “may be the main source of additional capital.”

“The global private sector has the money,” Milton said. “But the structure within these African jurisdictions, land tenure, and the ability for African nations to partner with private capital is not in position.”

Premium tourism, premium revenue and conservation outcomes

By attracting a select group of wealthy tourists eager to soak in the reserve’s vast landscapes and abundant wildlife, the Karingani reserve can finance its anti-poaching force and, Milton claims, create economic opportunities for nearby communities.

“The multipliers of high-end tourism generates eight to nine downstream jobs per permanent job on property,” Milton said. “Mass tourism doesn’t give you that multiplying effect in terms of regional job creation and economic uplift.”

But at present, according to Karingani’s website its staff includes only 170 people from 10 neighboring Cubo communities, saying that more shorter-term jobs are expected to be created during the construction phase. Milton told Mongabay that the reserve hopes to create more than 750 permanent tourism-sector jobs once the guest lodges are in full operation. (The combined population of Massingir and Magude districts — the two municipalities that include Karingani’s land — is around 100,000).

Francis Massé, a lecturer at Northumbria University in the U.K. who researches conservation security and anti-poaching efforts in Mozambique, says that in remote areas with limited infrastructure and government investment, conservation projects like Karingani can provide job opportunities where there aren’t many otherwise.

“There’s a huge potential for the private sector to play a really important role in conservation in Mozambique,” Massé told Mongabay in an interview, adding that it should be done “in a way that genuinely brings people into the product of conservation and contributes to long-term wellbeing and development.”

But who owns the land?

While Karingani’s operators say the reserve will improve the lives of Mozambicans who have traditionally occupied the land it now controls, not all of the communities living in the area have been convinced in recent years. Mozambique has a track record of handing out land to i nvestors without consulting locals, and according to reporting by the Pulitzer Center and others, Karingani has been plagued by similar land conflicts to those that extractive projects have faced elsewhere in the country.

For 20 years, Karingani and its predecessor, Twin City, have been embroiled in a dispute over who owns the land that the reserve is being developed on, with local Cubo communities saying they were duped into handing some of it over to government officials who later transferred the land to Twin City and that promised jobs haven’t materialized .

Since then, conflict over the boundaries of the park has raged , particularly after the Mozambican government rezoned a stretch of farmland in Karingani’s expansion plan out of Cubo control. One Cubo leader says he was offered a bribe by local authorities in exchange for transferring 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of land into Twin City’s control.

According to local media reports, in 2018 Karingani agreed to a compromise over the boundaries of the park and paid nearly $50,000 in compensation to community members who had lost cattle to lion attacks.

Human-wildlife conflict is a major complaint for communities who have long relied on cattle farming and agriculture for their livelihoods, said Kei Otsuki, a professor of international development studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands who has conducted research on displacement in Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park. Tourist-oriented reserves like Karingani often import wildlife from other areas, she said, creating a problem for locals when their crops and livestock are attacked by large animals.

An advocate with the Mozambican civil society group Plataforma Distrital de Sociedade Civil de Massingir who recently visited Cubo communities near Karingani told Mongabay the relationship between those communities and the park has improved in recent years, but that there is still skepticism about its expansion plans as well as the Mozambican government’s commitment to respecting local land rights. According to the advocate, who asked not to be named, one leader she spoke to said they had lost 121 cattle and suffered three deaths to wildlife attacks since Twin City’s arrival.

(Due to pandemic-related safety concerns, Mongabay was not able to send a reporter to directly interview Cubo community members about their views on the Karingani project.)

On Karingani’s website, it says that all land it controls was acquired legally , mainly through what are called DUATs — formal land use rights issued by the Mozambican government. Milton told Mongabay that the reserve is making efforts to develop a better relationship with local communities than it’s had in the past.

He said Karingani has built schools and other infrastructure, financed agriculture programs, and is currently planning to install a 70-km (43-mi) pipeline to deliver clean water to communities east of the reserve. The reserve also provides compensation for crops damaged by elephants and other wildlife, he said.

“We are dogged about delivery,” Milton said. “Our communities are our real partners, they’re not tokens. It’s transparent, and we deliver on what we promise, but even then, things go wrong,” citing as examples bug infestations of crops, low agricultural yield, and labor disputes.

But Otsuki told Mongabay that the power imbalance between communities on one side, and private-sector conservationists along with their government partners on the other, makes it hard to ensure that agreements over land and benefits are fair.

“Even when there is an official resettlement agreement, people get easily convinced by, ‘We’ll give you tap water and you should be happy,’” Otsuki said. “It has to be more than that. The co-ownership of a project or co-ownership of tourism, that’s the way to go.” According to Karingani’s website, 30% of the revenue generated by the Cubo Community Lodge, set to open later this year, will go toward communities and 70% to the reserve.

“It’s really simple,” Milton said. “It’s about relationship management. We treat our local partners as well as we treat ourselves and vice versa. But it took us a long time to realize it’s what we should be doing … as we’ve been learning along the way.”

But benefits promised to communities by Karingani and Twin City have failed to make their way into the right hands in the past. While DUATs require 20% of the revenue generated from tourism and game hunting on community land to be disbursed to those communities, in 2017 some Cubo residents complained to a researcher that they had not received their share, with one claiming that they’d been told by Twin City that it had “paid the government and that it’s the government who should then channel the money to us.”

Private capital, wildlife economy

Some conservationists have long dreamed of implementing a wildlife economy in parts of Africa as a way to finance protected areas.

“We want to promote the wildlife economy in Mozambique,” Sean Nazerali, director for innovative financing at BIOFUND, told Mongabay, listing examples for garnering revenue such as trophy hunting, game farming, ecotourism, habitat restoration, and the carbon market. “Communities can make so much more money from wildlife than they can from subsistence farming.”

Nazerali says that privately protected areas are better managed, see higher density of animals, and have lower deforestation rates than public protected areas, adding that private game reserves offer local economic opportunities.

“In most places, you’re the only economically functioning entity within a day’s walk,” Nazerali said. “You’re the source of a lot of hope as well as a number of frustrations. You’ve got to be managing that relationship all the time.”

But what constitutes an “economically functioning entity” in regions where large portions of the population live in the informal economy — and stand to lose access to resources when land they traditionally use is rezoned for conservation — isn’t always straightforward.

“There could be lots of good intentions and lots of effort to work with communities, but there’s still those classic challenges of … this hard protected area model that sees conservation as keeping people out,” Massé said, drawing on his experience researching Canhane, Cubo and other communities around Karingani from 2014 to 2016 for his research.

IUCN’s Anukur said that striking the right balance between community empowerment and results-driven conservation is key to the long-term well-being of ecosystems in landscapes like Karingani.

“A key point right now is to recognize the rights of [Indigenous] people to that land, the rights of those people to a livelihood, and to create models for which these rights can be upheld as well as … a coexistence between people and nature in those settings,” Anukur said.

As the Karingani project unfolds, whether it can turn a profit while also convincing the Cubo and other communities that its presence is a long-term win for both wildlife and local people remains a crucial challenge. If those communities don’t see tangible benefits from private conservation and feel marginalized from decision-making, they will be unlikely to buy into the model, researchers say.

“To what extent is the real, genuine inclusion and participation of local people in the process and project of conservation?” Massé said. “I think that is kind of the big sticking point in terms of its ability to really contribute to transforming the area and developing a genuine, sustainable wildlife economy.”

Banner image: Tourists in South Africa’s Kruger National Park photograph wildlife. Image by Rhett Butler for Mongabay.

Fenio, K. G. (2014). Poaching rhino horn in South Africa and Mozambique: Community and expert views from the trenches. US Department of State.

Lunstrum, E. (2008). Mozambique, neoliberal land reform, and the Limpopo National Park. Geographical Review, 98 (3), 339-355. doi: 10.1111/j.1931-0846.2008.tb00305.x

Otsuki, K., Achá, D., & Wijnhoud, J. D. (2017). After the consent: Re-imagining participatory land governance in Massingir, Mozambique. Geoforum , 83 , 153-163. doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.09.011

Salomão, A. (2020). Land-based investments in Mozambique: Challenges in community rights protection, participation and benefit sharing (Doctoral dissertation, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands). Retrieved from http://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/397377

Kronenburg García, A., Wijnhoud, D., Otsuki, K., & Achá, D. (2016).  The case of Massingir District: Wildlife conservation, tourism and sugarcane plantations  (Policy Brief 2, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Natherlands). Retrieved from https://actionaid.nl/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/20170420-Policy-Brief-_02.pdf

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Mozambique Has Extraordinary Beaches and Marine Wildlife — Experience Its Beauty at These 3 Idyllic Resorts

On the shores of southern Mozambique, three special resorts provide access to a rich marine environment — and the chance of a brighter future for the people who call the region home.

Aatish Taseer is a British-American writer and journalist. He is the author of “The Twice-Born: Life and Death on the Ganges” and a contributor to T: The New York Times Style Magazine .

I watched the land closely from the air. The chocolate-brown earth of South Africa, bare and threaded with rivers that turned quicksilver in the morning sun, gave way to grassland in Mozambique . Perfectly round lagoons appeared, their barren circumference suggesting brackish water. That hint of salinity was a prelude to the sea, but no preparation for what came next. 

The plane tilted and the sun burst through the windows, sending ovals of solid gold over the cabin walls. I looked down at the islands of the Bazaruto Archipelago and the sea between them, a low tide streaming out in 20 tantalizing shades of blue. The sprawling expanse of a sandbar had pushed through the shallows. My first thought was of a sculpture in sand, reminiscent of those works of early Cubism — Picasso’s "Tête de Femme (Fernande) , " perhaps — in which all the facets of a face are seen at once, myriad planes collapsed into a single visage. The sea seemed almost to act like shadow, highlighting and deepening the lines of that piercing countenance. 

Michael Turek

“I simply think that water is the image of time,” wrote the poet Joseph Brodsky in "Watermark," his meditation on Venice. My first glimpse of the Bazaruto Archipelago evoked that sense so many cultures have of the sea as a metaphor for divinity — now in the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters in Genesis, now in Vishnu floating on a cosmic sea. Water: it is the element that best represents that sensation of stillness, movement, and simultaneity that we know, in our heart of hearts, offers a glimpse of the divine. 

The Bazaruto Archipelago is a chain of five islands in southern Mozambique, on the edge of the Indian Ocean. It is located at the junction of two wildlife “corridors,” which species such as humpback whales and blacktip and hammerhead sharks use to migrate up and down the eastern coast of Africa. The region also has many variable weather systems that give it an extraordinary diversity of habitats, from sand flats and mangrove swamps to freshwater lakes. 

I was alone, by the sea. This was not luxury I had to think myself into. It emanated from the place itself, and I felt it in every fiber of my being.

The archipelago is beautiful beyond conception, but it was not beauty alone that I found so affecting that morning. A feeling of fragility had come to me during the pandemic. I was emerging from months of isolation. My first attempt to visit in November of last year had failed: Omicron struck, and Mozambique was one of eight African countries hobbled by COVID-related travel restrictions.

The trip had to be canceled, but naturally I got sick anyway, sitting in upstate New York. It had been a long, bitter winter that had made me almost fearful of travel. Dropping south from JFK on a 15-hour United flight to Johannesburg , sailing into the Southern Hemisphere, I found myself balancing the thrill of being out in the world again with a new sense of precariousness. The enthralling spectacle of the archipelago was edged with a degree of sadness. I was reminded of the fear that almost kept me from leaving home. If ever proof were needed of how wonderful the world is, there it was in that translucent expanse of sea and sand beneath me, the image of all that was ephemeral and enduring. 

Mozambique sits like a slumped Y in the southeastern quadrant of Africa, its tail in South Africa, its horns facing north to Tanzania, Malawi, and Zimbabwe . The Zambezi River runs along its slender waist, separating a predominantly Muslim, Swahili-speaking north from a Bantu Christian south. A coastline of some 1,500 miles gazes out at the Indian Ocean, a geography that has, over the course of history, often made the south of the Arabian Peninsula and the western coast of India feel as much a part of Mozambique’s story as the continent of Africa is. It was the sea that brought Arab traders to these shores for a thousand years, beginning in the 10th century, and the sea that drew Vasco da Gama in 1498, on his way to India. His arrival marked the beginning of the Portuguese presence in Mozambique, which continued unevenly for nearly 500 years, driven by a greed for gold, ivory, and, as was so often the case in Africa, people to enslave. 

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Vilankulo, a coastal town of some 25,000 people, is the gateway to the Bazaruto Archipelago. Once I had cleared the languors of immigration at its diminutive airport, I was met by Mario De Figueiredo, a bush pilot with a bright-red helicopter. Ferrying me between the mainland and Benguerra Island, De Figueiredo pointed out villages with circular houses made of local madjeka (thatch) and caniço (reed). I saw unpaved roads of sand among a rich, glossy vegetation of palms and fruit-laden trees, dunes, and clear-water lakes. 

De Figueiredo grew up in the final years of Portuguese rule in Mozambique. It had taken the fall of dictator Antonio Salazar in 1968 for Portugal to finally begin to relinquish parts of Africa over which it retained a stubborn stranglehold, even as it kept them willfully underdeveloped. In less than a year, three nations won their independence — Guinea-Bissau in 1974 and Angola and Mozambique in 1975 — the latter at the hands of a Marxist-led freedom movement called frelimo. Describing the precariousness of that moment in his 1992 book "A Complicated War , " the New Yorker writer William Finnegan wrote, “The illiteracy rate was over 90 percent. There were fewer than a thousand Black high school graduates in all of Mozambique.” 

De Figueiredo left the country in 1974, aged 14, and moved to Portugal as part of a mass exodus of Africans of European descent. Scarcely two years of peace ensued before the newly independent nation was plunged into a 15-year civil war. It is hard to exaggerate how utterly wretched that conflict was. A million died, and 4.5 million were internally displaced. This poorest of poor countries was pitted with land mines, and had a brutalized population of dislocados (dislocated peoples), mutilados (amputees), and bandidos armados (armed bandits). 

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Frelimo’s goal was to establish Africa’s first Black Marxist state in Mozambique. It was also what the scholar Sayaka Funada-Classen has described in "The Origins of War in Mozambique" as “the first serious defiance of colonial authority in southern Africa.” Neighboring apartheid regimes were not about to countenance such a state on their borders, especially one that gave refuge to Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress. They viewed the new country as a mortal threat and, as a result, Mozambique was drawn into a hideous proxy war, becoming one of the last great theaters of the Cold War. China and the Soviet Union supported the government against an insurgency that was backed first by Southern Rhodesia and later, once that country became Zimbabwe in 1980, South Africa. It took the end of the Cold War and the demise of apartheid for this ravaged nation to know a modicum of peace.

That night at andBeyond Benguerra Island, the stars were upside down. The sky that James Joyce described as a “heaventree of humid nightblue fruit” revealed constellations — the Southern Cross, Hydra, and Carina — that are visible only south of the equator. I joined Michael Turek, the photographer for this article, and a handful of other guests by a fire on the beach before dinner, and together we listened to De Figueiredo’s stories. Having been driven out of the country of his birth as a teenager, he had longed to return. Twenty-four years later, in the thick of a midlife crisis, he came back to southern Africa, eventually training to be a pilot. 

There were rumors of trouble up north again, which had caused one of andBeyond’s resorts, near Vamizi, to shutter. When I asked De Figueiredo about it, he said, “It’s about money.” The discovery of rubies, gold, and natural gas was menacing Mozambique’s hard-won peace, but here on the beach, in a country twice the size of California, the danger felt abstract, and far away.

In the terrazzo-floored bar, a recording of André Marie Tala, that musical genius from Cameroon, was playing, evoking a heartbreaking optimism I have always associated with the early days of independence in the postcolonial world.

In Mozambique, I rediscovered my love of the sea. On the morning I met Tessa Hempson, principal scientist and program manager at the conservation organization Oceans Without Borders, I was still brimming with excitement after my first dive in 15 years. Having remastered the magical arts of equalizing, breathing, and achieving neutral buoyancy, I drifted over the seafloor, gazing first at the coiled cerebral matter of brain coral, then at orange harlequin fish darting in and out of stubby-fingered digitate coral. Leathery sea anemones, with their many tendrils, fanned beneath me, revealing their brilliant purple interiors. 

Farther along, chocolate dip damselfish were having a different sort of party, one with a strictly monochrome dress code. They flitted about in white tie and tails, up and over the gnarled basin of a plate coral, adhering to the rules of their fraternity. To be a scuba diver is to be the worst kind of gate-crasher — ill-attired, intrusive, full of a sense of entitlement. The sea creatures are icy in their disdain. Even to ask you to leave is to deign to notice you, and draw attention to your bad manners, which they stoutly refuse to do.

Hempson, who describes herself as a “bush kid,” having grown up surrounded by wildlife in an area between Johannesburg and Maputo, told me she had spent the morning rolling hammerhead sharks onto their backs. I had heard that turning the creatures over lulled them into docility, but thought it was an urban legend. Hempson confirmed that it was true. “What is that called?” I asked her. “A tonic state,” she said easily, “like gin and tonic.” Once she has the sharks purring away happily under her, she installs telemetric devices in their bellies. 

Tracking apex predators, along with monitoring beach erosion and recording soundscapes of the sea to catch everything from anthropogenic noise to whale song, is part of a day’s fieldwork for Hempson. The more difficult aspect of her job is to instill her love of the sea among those she describes as “stakeholders.” These include the local communities, for whom fish and other sea creatures are at times the only source of edible protein, but also the kind of rich, influential people who can afford to vacation at the resorts on Benguerra. (The archipelago has recently been declared a “hope spot” — one of a handful of “special places that are critical to the health of the ocean” — by Mission Blue, the conservation movement led by legendary American oceanographer Sylvia Earle.)

For Hempson, a lodge like andBeyond plays a critical role. On a human level, she explained, the resort has been a pioneer on the island. It helped build the school, the clinic, the church, and the community center. Its Hippo Water Rollers — plastic containers with handles — have made clean water easy to get and transport. The company provides skills training and engages the community in conservation work and education.

On the environmental front, andBeyond, with its long lease in the archipelago, serves not merely as a jumping-off point for Hempson’s fieldwork. It also has the potential to stimulate impact-driven luxury travel, which in turn could influence policy at the highest levels. “To change behavior,” she told me, “you have to reach people on an emotional level.” Hempson’s work, which she does in tandem with the Africa Foundation, embodies what the United Nations terms “intersectoral collaboration” — which is in turn crucial, the UN says, to the achievement of its sustainable-development goals.

When I told Hempson I had seen a dugong that morning after my dive, its smooth, bowed body catching the sun, its whiskered snout sniffing this way and that, she nearly fell out of her chair. “That’s unbelievable,” she said. “It’s hard to explain to people how precious that is.” Before coming to Bazaruto, Hempson said, she had only ever seen three dugongs. They were considered practically extinct until some 50 of the creatures showed up in the archipelago. “We had not thought there were so many left on the whole African coast, let alone in one area.” 

Kisawa! The word had acquired a kind of mystery and glamour long before I stepped through the doors of the dazzling new resort of the same name on the southern tip of Benguerra Island. At andBeyond’s Dhow Bar, the name had been uttered with an awe-inflected hush. A Bulgarian lawyer spoke reverently of its vast 1,600-square-foot villas, swiftly dismissing the need for digs so grand. A South African builder, in between beers and talk of Bitcoin, looked at his wife and said, alluding to its $5,000-a-night price tag, “We can’t afford it, baby. We’re working-class!” The fabled status of Kisawa — the word means “unbreakable” in Tswa, the island language — was such that when I was picked up at andBeyond, it felt as if I were being transferred to the Ritz. 

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In the meantime the island of Benguerra had grown every day more magical, like Caliban’s isle, “full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.” I was taken to Kisawa by the bandanna-ed Q (short for Querino) Lucas Huo, who works as the marine, activities, and community liaison manager at Kisawa. Along the way, he stopped to point out herds of sunis, antelopes no bigger than whippets, that picked their way through the shrubbery and glanced coyly in our direction. We passed trees heavy with macuacua and massala (monkey orange) , from which the islanders make a kind of beer. Q made me taste the fruit. It was like an Asian mangosteen, pitted and wonderfully tart. 

A low, bruised sky had hung over us all morning; just as Kisawa’s villas appeared, it began to rain. “A blessing,” Q said. The villas had long roofs of serried madjeka, framed by a sea that fell back for acres in enticing bands of blue. 

If I was to describe Kisawa in the language of tourism — or indeed, in the language of my fellow travelers at the Dhow Bar — I would talk of the butler it provides each bungalow, the private pools, the enfilade of rooms divided by great sliding doors dressed in a local matting called esteira . I would talk of the long, turmeric-colored sofas and the furniture from every corner of Africa, the redwood and rattan chairs from Cameroon, the bulb-shaped baskets from Nigeria. I would talk of Joseph Moubayed, the cobalt-eyed chef, who marshals the different strands of his background — Lebanon, Senegal, and France — to create food of such lightness and subtlety that I was left guessing at the origin of its flavors. (Was that crab with matapa, a local stew made from boiling cassava leaves and mixing them with coconut milk? Or muhammara infused with tinziva, a native fruit, a cousin of tamarind, with a tangy juice? Wait: Did he just use monkey orange in the ceviche to give it that wrenching back-of-the-mouth sourness?) I could talk of all this, yet never capture the feeling I had every evening at Kisawa, leaving for the main terrace in my villa’s dedicated electric Moke, driving through winding roads with silvered views of the sea, the twinkling of other villas in the distance. Torchlit pathways led to restaurants blazing with light, where Moubayed was cooking up fish pastels and curried lamb shank. 

In the terrazzo-floored bar, with its porthole windows and beamed ceilings, a recording of André Marie Tala, that musical genius from Cameroon, was playing, evoking a heartbreaking optimism I have always associated with the early days of independence in the postcolonial world. It is a music that contains the promise of new beginnings, when hopes of self-reliance and autonomy were yet to be dashed by sectarian violence and civil war. 

To ask a new hotel to capture the mood of the past is like asking a new house to feel lived-in. But that is exactly what Kisawa does, and it goes to the heart of the effortless chic the place exudes. Kisawa was started by a fixture of London society: Nina Flohr, the VistaJet heiress who is now also the Princess of Greece and Denmark, having recently married the youngest son of King Constantine. Flohr’s hands-on involvement in Kisawa is visible around the resort, from Moubayed’s dazzling menus, which they crafted together, to decorative touches like the record player and handpicked vinyl collection I found in my room. 

Flohr also oversees the Bazaruto Center for Scientific Studies, the marine research center Kisawa founded and continues to fund. “Nina seeded it, and pushed it,” said Mario Lebrato, station manager and chief scientist at the BCSS. He described the archipelago as a marine “crossroads,” adding, “This is a super hot spot for migratory animals.” The BCSS supports conservation through the gathering of data, Lebrato explained, which it makes available to everybody, from Mozambique’s Ministry of the Sea to local universities, students, and researchers. “We treat it as research,” Lebrato said, holding a hydrophone he had been using to record ocean soundscapes, “but that has a conservation value.”

There were certain moments at Kisawa that I already look back on as among the happiest of my life. Perhaps it was the time I had just finished a long dive, in which I had seen blacktip reef sharks circling like a menacing shadow above the coral, sending a chill over the seafloor. Loggerhead turtles, with piebald faces, swam up into raking shafts of plankton-filled light. Afterward, in a bathroom the size of my apartment, with high-backed ebony chairs from Tanzania and a bathtub that looked like a dinosaur egg cracked open, the room was filled with a diffuse marine light. Beyond were dunes draped in purple beach morning glory. I was alone, by the sea. This was not luxury I had to think myself into. It emanated from the place itself, and I felt it in every fiber of my being.

Mozambique is the only country to have a modern weapon on its flag. The sight of that AK-47 framed against a yellow star on a red background, outside a government office in Vilankulo, was a reminder of the terrible violence its people have endured. On my first full day in Mozambique, I had talked to Isac Paulo Nhamirre, a muscular man with the leashed demeanor of a soldier. He described himself as working as a liaison between hotels and resorts, the local community, and the government. He could remember as if it were yesterday how he had been on his lunch break, aged 18, in school — it was 2:25 p.m. — when recruiters from the government arrived and forced him to join the army. 

“You stand up, you stand up, you follow us,” they said. He remembers them giving him documents to sign. They made a stop at his house to tell his parents that he was joining up. “That I was not going back,” he said. “That this beautiful moment” — he was only in eighth grade, because the war had forced him to start school very late — “was over.” Nhamirre, now 37, went on to serve in Burundi. “It wasn’t a good place to be,” he said, recalling a world where child soldiers aged 12 and 13 had been brainwashed to kill without thinking. “It was horrible.” 

At Sussurro, a boutique hotel on the mainland overlooking Govuro lagoon, some 55 miles north of Vilankulo, I spent the morning of my last full day in Mozambique talking to men who had lived through the war. Sussurro is a place of spartan beauty — no Wi-Fi, no air-conditioning — a place of mosquito nets and long afternoons spent reading. I had asked Nick Taylor, the hotel’s Zimbabwean manager, to help arrange a conversation with veterans of the war, in part out of a need, amid all this arresting natural beauty, not to lose sight of the lived experience of those around me. It was only when Taylor, perhaps surprised by my request, asked me what I was writing about that I first said the word aloud. “Fragility.”

This week in Mozambique, too, had in literal and metaphorical ways been a kind of surfacing. It had restored to me my sense of curiosity and wonder.

I realized that it was what I had felt all this while. The fragility of peace, both in Mozambique and now in the world at large, which the war in Ukraine had taught us to appreciate anew. But there was also environmental fragility, that delicate balance in the sea that people like Hempson and Lebrato were fighting so hard to preserve. None of this would have been apparent to me had another kind of fragility, related to our way of life, not been shattered by the pandemic. We had thought the momentum of our modern lives was unstoppable. But it had proved more fragile than we could ever have imagined. 

The tide had retreated. In that gap between ebb and flow, there is a window of time in which it is possible to drive along the beach from Sussurro to Vilankulo airport. We were soon racing over the wet sand in a blue Mazda pickup truck. The sea was on my left, an embankment of red earth on my right, dotted with frayed palms, fishing nets, and the wreckage of washed-up boats. 

The sea reminds us of our mammalian need to breathe. The dugong can stay underwater for a time, but what makes it like us on the most primal level, separating it from the creatures of cold blood and scales, is that it must eventually come up for air. This week in Mozambique, too, had in literal and metaphorical ways been a kind of surfacing. It had restored to me my sense of curiosity and wonder. An old restlessness and joy had returned, reminding me of why one ventured out into the world at all. Sloughing off the fears the pandemic had engendered, it had taught me what it was to breathe again. 

Where to Stay

and Beyond Benguerra Island : Inside Bazaruto Archipelago National Park, honeymoon-perfect villas await—but the real draws are the wildlife experts, scuba-diving excursions, and sailing on a dhow.

Kisawa : This resort on Benguerra Island has an award-winning design: the accommodations were built using sustainable materials like woven native grasses. Each bungalow sits on its own private acre, has its own pool, and comes with a butler.

Sussurro: This boutique property, which opened in 2021 on the mainland’s Nhamabue Peninsula, is supported by renewable energy and local fishing and farming.

How to Book

The Legacy Untold: This luxury agency is helmed by Mark Lakin , a member of T+L’s Travel Advisory Board , who has a decade of experience planning African trips. The company can arrange a Mozambique itinerary that includes snorkeling with giant manta rays in the Indian Ocean and picnicking on remote sandbars. [email protected]; 646-580-3026

A version of this story first appeared in the November 2022 issue of  Travel + Leisure  under the headline "By Water Reborn ."

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