Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park on 60 Minutes

I love 60 Min­utes because they often pre­pare seg­ments about dif­fer­ent areas of Africa, delv­ing into the continent’s wildlife, pol­i­tics, health crises, and eco­nomic devel­op­ment. Last night reporter Scott Pel­ley reported from Mozambique’s Goron­goza National Park.

The imagery was stun­ning and the nar­ra­tive told the story of Mozam­bique and its decades-long war and health prob­lems typ­i­fied by malaria and HIV. The seg­ment also intro­duced us to Amer­i­can entre­pre­neur Greg Carr, who fell in love with this coun­try years ago and is spend­ing much of his per­sonal for­tune (he helped develop the con­cept of voice­mail in the mid-eighties) to help turn Goron­gosa National Park into a tourism suc­cess story.

“The idea is take the beauty of the park and use that to do human devel­op­ment. Attract the tourists who will spend the money to cre­ate the jobs and lift every­body outta poverty,” said Carr. “For an entre­pre­neur, it’s kind of a com­pelling opportunity.”

The park was once con­sid­ered a must-visit spot for safari-goers, but war, poverty, and poach­ing changed that. In the 1960s, Goron­gosa nur­tured 500 lions, 2,000 ele­phants, 14,000 Cape buf­falo, and 3,000 hippos—among other ani­mals. Those pop­u­la­tions were dec­i­mated by poach­ers and now eco­nomic devel­op­ment and wildlife pro­tec­tion is required to return Goron­gosa to her for­mer beauty.

Accord­ing to 60 Min­utes, Carr has ear­marked $40 mil­lion of his per­sonal wealth to the project and through his non-profit, the Carr Foun­da­tion, he has an agree­ment with the Mozam­bi­can gov­ern­ment to assist with the devel­op­ment of Goron­gosa for the next two decades.

If you missed Scott Pelley’s report on Mozambique’s Goron­gosa National Park on 60 Min­utes, you can watch the seg­ment online.