In How Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park is rebounding from war, National Geopgraphic takes a look at conservation efforts which include the local community, protecting wildlife by improving the lives of local farmers and families.

Circumstances were just as grim on the lands surrounding the park. About 100,000 people lived in what planners now call the buffer zone—mostly families growing corn and other subsistence crops, barely able to feed themselves, their children shorted on education and health care. When the soil tired and the corn failed to thrive, the farmers would cut forest, burn the slash, and try again on a new patch.