1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
Live TV
Latest audioLatest videos
In focus
Russia's war in UkraineGerman election 2025COP29 climate talks
Nature and EnvironmentAfrica

A real life Noah's ark

Jürgen Schneider
September 12, 2017

How do you go about reintroducing wildlife to national parks all but wiped out by decades of civil war? Mozambique has a (biblical) answer.

https://p.dw.com/p/2jlmz
Two giraffes in bush
Image: DW/Jürgen Schneider

Repopulating Wildlife Parks in Mozambique

Project goal: Rewilding Mozambique's Zinave National Park, which was poached nearly empty during the civil war. 
Project size: Reintroduction of 7,500 wild animals from various African countries over the next three years. It will take an estimated 15 to 20 years before the population has grown back to pre-war size.
Project budget: $2.5 million.

It is the biggest-ever resettlement of wild animals in Africa - and it's being carried out to infuse new life into the Zinave National Park. Organized by South Africa's Peace Parks Foundation, the massive undertaking includes the capture of 1,400 antelopes from Mozambique's Gorgongosa National Park. It, too, suffered massive biodiversity loss during two decades of civil war but began the process of rewilding 20 years ago, and can now share some of its animals.

A film by Jürgen Schneider