Gorongosa National Park wins conservation prize
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In Mozambique, Gorongosa National Park succeeded actor Harrison Ford as the recipient of the E.O. Wilson Legacy Award for Transformative Leadership in Conservation. The award recognizes the park’s work restoring ecology and supporting local communities.
The E.O. Wilson Foundation for Biodiversity created the award in 2025 to honor individuals and organizations continuing the work of biologist Edward O. Wilson, known for his expertise in biodiversity.
Aurora Malene, president of the Gorongosa Restoration Project, accepted the award on October 12 at Harvard University on behalf of the park’s scientists, rangers, and community teams. Harrison Ford presented the prize, noting that Wilson greatly admired Gorongosa and believed it represented a landscape untouched by humans. He praised the project’s two decades of work maintaining the park and its surroundings. The park began a restoration process after Mozambique’s civil war devastated its wildlife populations.
From 1972 to 2000, the war reduced the park’s large animal population by over 90 percent. Through a public-private partnership between the Mozambican government and the Carr Foundation, Gorongosa has become an internationally recognized example of ecosystem recovery. Today, the park’s wild animal biomass exceeds levels recorded in the 1960s, and its lion population has grown from fewer than 10 in 2004 to over 250.
