Aveiro, Portugal, 3 May – The reintroduction of large African mammals into the Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique will be accompanied by biologist from Aveiro University in Portugal, as part of a protocol signed Thursday by the two institutions, a University spokesperson said Wednesday.

Aveiro University is the first European university to sign a cooperation protocol with the Gorongosa National Park/Carr Foundation, which plans to bring together several similar bodies to recover the park.

According to the spokesperson, a researcher from the university is already in Gorongosa as part of the scientific cooperation protocol, which will also involve the Durrel Institute for Conservation and Ecology, of Kent University, England.

The Gorongosa National Park/Carr Foundation also plans to sign agreements with the University of Zimbabwe, University of Pretoria and University of Cape Town (South Africa) and with the Smithsonian Institute’s Center for Tropical Forest Science.

The Gorongosa National Park is located in the central Mozambican province of Sofala and was set up in the 1960s.

The post-independence armed conflict lasting over a decade and the institutional vacuum that followed the signing of peace agreements in 1992, led to the disappearance of over 98 percent of the large mammals living in the area.

Despite this the Gorongosa National Park survived and began to recover and there are currently thousands of animals, including a residual population of some 30 lions. (macauhub)